


MMFD Season 3

by Fanningon



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: Lots of Sex, Multi, My Season 3 (following after Season 2 & ignoring season 3 of the tv show)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-01-20 19:59:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 335,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1523717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fanningon/pseuds/Fanningon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First episode of an 8 episode season 3 fanfic. if you can, read it with the suggested music.</p><p>cheers m'dears</p><p>ps - you can find more of my writing (including non-fanfic work like Elsa's backstory) over at Tumblr -<br/>http://blue--green.tumblr.com/post/162532546571/writing-masterpost</p><p>pps - these 8 chapters were originally posted as separate fics in 2014 so i consolidated them into one and deleted the others in 2017</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1 - Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First episode of an 8 episode season 3 fanfic. if you can, read it with the suggested music.
> 
> cheers m'dears

_‘ Wonderwall’ by Oasis_

_Taking a bite out of a piece of bread was one thing.  But getting naked was another.  And if I couldn’t do it, then it wasn’t fair to Finn to get involved with him again or to be around him._

Finn walked into the pub, the familiar smells made him smile and he saw the gang in the corner of his eye.  But the only person he really wanted to see was Rae.  He knew he should say hi to them, but all he did was walk up to Rae.

“How’s it going?”

Rae noticed the gang looking over and pulling speculative faces, but she couldn’t focus on anything but Finn. 

“Ups & downs, you know?” 

_How was it that he were back?_

_How was it that he were walking into the pub and smiling at me as if nothing had happened, as if nothing had changed?_

“I just wondered if we could talk, you know, about you and me?”

***

_Me heart were in my mouth._

_When we talked at the hospital, it felt like nothing and everything had changed between us.  I almost forgot that we weren’t together anymore.  I were just her man looking after her.  And she was my girl._

_That feeling, made me think that maybe, if we talked, we could work it out.  Finally._

_I didn’t care if we had to talk all night._

_I didn’t care if we had to talk all week._

_I were ready to do whatever it took._

_I missed her too much to not try._

“No.” 

_It felt like me heart had just stopped, and the pain from that threatened to cave in me chest._

“No I, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

_Won’t you at least try Rae?  I’ll beg…_

“I don’t think talking’s a good idea.”

She turned from him and Finn felt tears sting his eyes.  His whole being felt desolate, and he knew it was truly over.  She didn’t feel for him the way he did for her.

_I should have stayed in Leeds._

He watched her pick up her bag.  He’d always watched her leave, and he supposed that this time would be no different, except in its permanency. 

But she didn’t walk away from him, she turned back to him and held out her hand.

“Come on Finn.”

He looked at her hand and back up at her face.  He looked back down at her hand placed his hand in hers.  She felt warm and a smile started to creep across his face.

“Let’s go back to my place.”

He looked up at her face, not believing, but he saw no teasing in her eye. 

“Your place?”

“Aye, Mum and Karim are staying in hospital tonight with the baby.  You want to have an exclusive sleepover?”

He felt his grin widening.

“How exclusive?”

“I’m only gonna invite you Finn, you fancy it?”

He tried to play it down by shrugging, but his eyes and the smile on his face screamed ‘yes’.

“Oh you know, I suppose.”

They walked out of the pub to the sounds of the jeers, cheers and laughter of the gang.  Finn felt like his head was light, just like the first night they’d gotten together.

He knew that even though Rae had indicated that they wouldn’t be talking, that they were probably going over to Rae’s place to talk the night away anyway, but part of him couldn’t help but hope that more would happen.  He’d been waiting a long time for Rae.

_I’ll wait as long as it takes for her._

 

He didn’t have a spare helmet so he carefully placed his own helmet on her head and strapped it under her chin.  He took off his jacket and handed it to her, so she was protected if there was an accident.  She knew too well than to argue with him on this, even though it left him helmetless and in a shirt.  There were few things in this world that Finn Nelson was vehemently adamant about, but one of them was Rae’s safety on his bike. 

_I felt her hands go around me waist and thought like I might jump out me own skin.  She scooted forward on the bike so that she were pressed against me back._

“You trying to make me crash, girl?”  She just laughed in his ear and held him tighter.

Everywhere she touched him tingled and he felt himself wanting to kiss her, to touch her. 

The bike roared to life and he pulled out of the parking lot, headed toward Miss Rae Earl’s home.

 

He watched her walk towards the front door, but stayed near his motorbike; an agony of indecision. 

Part of him was aching to go inside and not talk, but he also knew that they had to talk.

“Rae,” She turned to him, her eyes still determined.  “Are you sure about this?  Don’t you think we need to talk?”

“Our relationship were pretty good weren’t it?”

“Happiest I’ve been in… well, me whole life.”

“Our… our…”  She struggled to think of the words, “stumbling block… were that I couldn’t be seen naked.  I have to do it now, cos I’m still not sure that I can do it.  And I need to try… not just for you Finn.  But for me.”

_In the caravan, I’d been so excited to finally have sex with her.  Me whole body had been on fire._

_I remember her hands shooting up to mine when I undid her top.  I remember her stopping me.  I thought it were me.  Had I moved too fast?  When she came out of the bathroom… I don’t know how to say it, but… there was this… distance there.  She were pulling away from me.  And she kept pulling away over the next few weeks, falling further and further away, no matter how hard I tried to hold on to her.  And then we were through.  And I was empty._

Finn realised that this moment would be the making or breaking of them.  If he went in there with her, he’d know whether they could be together or not.  If she could let herself be naked, everything would be alright.  But if she couldn’t, it was over, there was no chance.  Other thoughts tried to push their way into his head, the need for them to talk was a persistent thought.  Also that basing an entire relationship of one thing like this was a dangerous idea.  He looked at her face for clues as to what he should do, how he should feel.  The strength, the fear, the vulnerability in her eyes, but it was her need – she needed for him to do this for her.  Even if a large part of him was worried that it might be a bad idea, she needed this. 

_I need to try… not just for you Finn.  But for me._

_She needs this, she needs me._

_Ok._

He pushed down all of his fears and worries, all of the countering arguments his mind had brought up.

He’d always do what she needed.

“Alright girl.”

 

He wiped his palms on his jeans as she closed the front door behind them.

He reached out hesitantly and put a hand on her waist.  She took his hand off her waist, and led him to the stairs.

_Is it a good sign that she’s leading me straight upstairs, or a bad sign that she didn’t want me to touch her?_

_Maybe she just wants to be naked, and there’ll be no touching?_

Finn’s mind worked over that for a moment.

_That’d be both brilliant and torturous._

When they got to the top of the stairs, Finn turned to Rae’s room and she pulled him towards her mum’s room.

“It’s not me room anymore.”

She opened the door to the larger bedroom.  She put her keys on the side and turned to look at Finn.

“What do you think?”

“I quite like it.  It’s big.  The ensuite’s got a good sized shower and bathtub.”  He nodded towards the ensuite.  “Can’t believe you’ve got an ensuite.”

“I know.  It’s posh innit?  Mum and Karim decided I needed more space to myself cos of the baby.  So… they gave me this.”

“It’s nice.”

They stood in silence.  Finn’s hands fidgeting with each other, his eyes never leaving hers.  He noticed her chest rising with each deep breath. 

They both knew how important this moment was.

_She don’t want to start either.  She’s as scared as me that it’ll all turn to shite._

_What if she can’t do it?  And then she thinks we can’t be together?_

_What if I’m not the one that she can do it for?_

“I’m quite nervous.”

“What are you nervous for?”  She started to laugh, but the mirth left her quickly.  They both knew why he was nervous too. 

She looked down and pursed her lips.  He knew that she was building up the courage, and he waited for her.  She looked up at him and stepped forward and put her fingertips on his stomach, sliding them down until they found the waistband of his pants.  She pulled him to her and he looked up at her, seeking her approval before touching her face. 

His nerves seemed to fade as soon as his fingertips touched her face and he felt her lean her face into his hand.

“I’ve missed you Finn.”  Her voice sounded so fragile.  His other hand raised to her face and he leaned in to kiss her, but she pulled back, one tear dawdling down her face.  She took her jacket off and put it on the table.  Finn took his own jacket off and waited, watching her for his cues.  She bent and took her shoes off and he matched her. 

And then she stalled.  Her hands resting on the hem to her shirt.  Finn stepped forward and put his hands on her arms, he pulled her closer, so that their lips were nearly touching. 

“I’ve missed you too.”  He whispered to her.  She nodded and her hands started to move.  But it was his jeans she was taking off, not her own clothes. 

Finn started to feel his stomach sink. 

_Maybe she can’t do it._

_Say something Finn._

_Tell her you don’t care, tell her you don’t need to have sex until she’s ready and you’ll wait forever if that’s what it takes.  Tell her you want to be with her anyway.  Tell her she’s your light and your warmth._

He pulled her into his arms trying to tell her all of this with the way he held her.  She pulled away gently and his jeans slid to the floor.  He raised his hands to her shirt and she stopped him, motioning to his jeans.  He stepped out of them. 

_I’m in me boxers and a shirt, and she’s still fully dressed._

_It’s not gonna happen._

_Do something Finn!_

He raised his hands to her shirt again and she stopped him again. 

_Let her know it’s ok if she won’t be naked, let her know you still love her anyway._

He leaned in to kiss her and she pulled away again. 

“I just have to freshen up.”  She said quietly and turned to the ensuite without looking back.  The door closed and Finn thudded onto the bed. 

_Nothing’s changed._

_She still can’t do it._

_And when she comes out of there, we’ll both know that it’s over._

_I don’t want her to come out._

_I just want to stay in this moment, where I still got hope._

_Maybe she just needs to pee Finn.  Relax._

_Yeah but she wouldn’t take her clothes off.  She can’t get over this… stumbling block.  And she thinks that means we can’t be together.  Knock on the door and tell her that’s rubbish._

_Give her some fucking space._

His whole body was shaking and he watched his fingers fidgeting with themselves.

He waited. 

_She been gone a long while._

_Maybe she don’t want to come out either.  Maybe she’s holding on to that hope too?_

_Maybe she’s fucking sick Finn – just chill._

_Fuck._

_Waiting is torture._

_I won’t want to look when she opens that door, cos I‘ll see the tears on her face, and I’ll know it’s over._

_This seems like such a stupid thing to end the happiest thing of my life for!_

_But it’s not to her._

_This is important to her.  So stop.  Wait._

_Just wait._

 

***

 

_It was too hard to imagine having to take each item of clothing off in front of him, it’d be like a dozen little reveals.  And I didn’t really want to reveal any of me.  Plus imagine trying to get me tights off in front of him.  I’d look like a fucking slapstick comedian._

She sat down on the edge of the bathtub. 

_I wanted this more than anything I’d wanted in my whole life.  I had to find a way._

Rae stared desperately around the room for an answer; towels on the towel rack, a shower scrubber, moisturiser on the basin, some dirty clothes in the corner, her rainbow bathrobe hanging on a hook on the back of the door, the was nothing useful in the ensuite.  She just stared at the door, and hoped that something would come to her. 

 

***

 

He sat staring at the wall, biting the cuticles around his nail.  Sometimes he made them bleed when he was nervous. 

_I won’t look at the door when she opens it.  I don’t want to know if it’s over.  I can’t._

He heard the door open and immediately looked, silently cursing himself. 

But she’d changed out of her clothes and was wearing that bathrobe of hers.

And he knew. 

_She’s gonna do it._

His whole body lit up as he stood and went to her. 

“You’re right, this is much better than talking.”

“Yeah well, when I say to be continued, I mean to be continued.” 

_All my fear, it were gone just like that._

_I realised that for the months I’d been without her I’d been so alone and so afraid._

_But she were gonna save me from that.  She were gonna save me from myself._

_It were actually gonna be alright._

_Oh fuck but me hands are shaking.  And me knees feel weak._

Finn pulled his shirt off.

_I’m with you girl._

He steadied his hands, the fidgeting in his fingers stopped, and he looked up to her face to make sure she was still alright.  He reached out to the bathrobe tie. 

_It’s like the entire world has stopped.  Or that time has spread out to be so slow, that it feels like it’s stopped… Everything is holding its breath.  Our moment has finally come._

His fingertips touched the tie, and almost instantly her hands snapped up to his. 

The world crashed back into Finn’s reverie. 

_Oh no._

_No._

_Rae, please don’t._

He could see the fear in her eyes.

_Tell her that we can talk tonight and try this tomorrow.  Or the next day, or next year.  Tell her it don’t matter Finn.  Tell her you love her Finn!  Just say those words!  Maybe if she knows how much you love her, she’ll be ok?_

The pain of this moment was blinding.  But even through his own torture, he could see the strength flooding into her.  And he understood. 

It would be ok.

It was a winding path they had to walk.  But they’d get there.  But this time, it wasn’t him that had to take the steps.  This was hers.  It belonged to her. 

She lowered his hands and then with that braveness of hers that Finn had always admired so much, she undid the bathrobe herself.  He put his hands up to her face, felt the familiar joy of tangling his fingers in her hair and watched a small, frightened, but brave smile touch her lips.  Slowly he lowered his hands to the collar of the robe, watching for any sign from her that she was not alright he carefully slid the bathrobe off her shoulders.  She let it fall to the floor with trepidation, but no attempt at stopping it. 

He slid his hands into the waist of his boxers and let them slide to the floor. 

They stood opposite each other.  Finally naked together. 

Finn felt his happiness creeping back into every cell in his body, mingled with his admiration for her.  He touched her face again, and saw relief in her eyes.

He leaned in to kiss her, and she matched him. 

The kiss was soft, slow and filled with their need for each other.  Their lips pressed harder against each other’s their tongues tasting each other

_There is nothing in this world but her lips.  Her mouth.  The way her tongue slides over me own.  The way her lips press into mine._

_Her kiss is the only thing in my entire universe._

_I will never have enough_

_Her mouth._

_Her mouth._

Finn had to stop, he was breathless. 

Their eyes met and Finn slowly let his hands move from her face to her neck, he felt her trembling as he left one hand on her jawline and let the other travel down the smooth skin of her chest to her full breasts. 

_She’s so afraid I won’t like her._

_I wish she could see how much I do._

He kept his eyes on her as he let his hand continue travelling down her body, to the soft curves of her hips and the silky fleshiness of her stomach. 

An impish grin lit up his face as his fingertips found her pubic hair and slid through it to find the opening between her labia. 

Her fear was slowly being replaced by desire as Finn kept his eyes on hers and slowly circled a finger around her clitoris.  His other hand gently stroking her face. 

_I ached to look at her body.  From what I could feel it were magnificent.  But one step at a time.  Don’t rush her.  Keep your eyes on her eyes._

_Oh fuck, look at the way she’s looking at me._

_So fucking sexy._

The look on Rae’s face made it very clear that she wanted him. 

He stopped, took his hand away from her vagina and brought his fingers to his mouth.  

She gave the smallest gasp of desire when she saw him lick her juices off his fingers. 

“Let’s go to the bed, yeah?”  He asked as he started to lead her to it by the hand. 

They laid down on the bed next to each other, Finn leaned over her and he remembered the last time they’d been in this position.

“Do you want to get me some red cabbage?”  He said cheekily to her as he snaked his hand down her body.  She laughed and bit her bottom lip as he slid first one and then the second finger inside of her.  An appreciative gasp escaped from her throat as he used his thumb to stroke her clitoris while moving his fingers in and out of her.  He stroked her hair and kissed her mouth, feeling the way her hips moved unconsciously, to be in synchronicity with his movements. 

He saw her hands clench around the bed sheet as she grew close.

“Sh!”  He started to chuckle as her moan grew louder. 

_The neighbours’ll fucking hear!_

He was intensely pleased with himself as he heard her moan louder still; the tone growing urgent.  Her hands clenched the bed and she arched her back, her eyes rolled back.  He sped up, pushing his fingers deeper.  And the urgency in her voice escalated, her hips moving faster in response. 

“Finn!”  She moaned, and he felt her vagina constrict around his fingers, her whole body shuddering in pleasure, her head thrown back, her eyes closed. 

A huge grin lit his face as he allowed himself to quickly look down her body, writhing in pleasure. 

He saw her breasts heaving with her loud orgasm, her full hips thrust up and her round stomach quivering with pleasure.  He saw her creamy skin, the darker skin around her nipples, her bushy pubic hair… and heard her breathlessness, felt her orgasm ending and knew he had to look away.

He wanted to explore her body in intense detail.  But for now, what she needed was his eyes on her eyes. 

Her cheeks were pink and sweat was beading on her forehead. 

“What you grinning at?”  She tried not to pant.  He shrugged but grinned wider before biting his bottom lip.

“I like the way you sound when you cum.”  He said, not able to hide his own excitement.  She reached her hands up and pulled his face to hers. 

_Her lips are like pure electricity._

He felt her hands exploring his body and was surprised to feel himself shaking with nerves and anticipation.

_Her hands on me is like nothing else._

A guttural groan seeped from his lips as her fingers found and then closed around his penis. 

He kissed her urgently as she started to stroke his cock.  He pressed his lips hard against hers, his tongue exploring every part of her mouth. 

He ran his hand up her thighs and gently prodded her to open her legs wider for him.  He felt the sensitive skin around her inner thighs and traced his fingers around the outside of her vagina. 

He stopped kissing her and watched her face as he positioned himself between her thighs.

“You right?”  He asked softly. 

“Yeah.”  She answered equally as softly. 

They both smiled.  There was triumph in their smiles; knowledge that the pain of their past had been overcome. 

He reached down and guided his cock towards her. 

He slid slowly inside of her, going as deep as he could, the feeling of her hips coming up to meet him sending shivers of pleasure down his spine. 

_The feeling of love I have for her hit me then._

_And it hit me hard._

_All the cheekiness, the fun, the sexiness was muted.  It were serious.  I were making love for the first time._

_I’d fucked before._

_But this were different._

_If you’d asked me how it were different, I’d have been hard put to give you the right words._

_All I could think as I felt her envelope me was that I loved her more than anything._

_I’d do anything for her.  There was nothing that was too much._

_I completely, and utterly, belonged to her._

_And I’d never felt that way before._

_I were built for her.  Put here for her._

_I was hers._

Finn leaned down and kissed Rae trying to tell her about all the love her possessed for her with his lips pressing against her lips. 

_If only I could explain this to her._

_If only I could find the right words._

_‘I love you’ seems so weak – it don’t do it justice._

He moved his hips slowly, purposefully, with the intention of staying as deeply inside of her as possible.  The fact that her hips were grinding out a similar intention did nothing for his intentions of lasting long enough to make her come again. 

Rae’s hands slid up his back and held his body to hers.

He could feel her breasts pressed against his chest.  Her thighs pressing into his hips.  Her skin on his skin.  Their thrusts in rhythm, their heartbeats keeping time.  The salt, the sweat on their bodies mixing.  Her breath mingling with his.  The sounds she made; the gasps, sighs, moans, her breath shivering as it left her mouth. 

When he didn’t kiss her he looked at her face.  The way her eyelashes caressed her skin as she moved her eyes to look at him.  The way her nostrils flared momentarily with pleasure.  The shape of her mouth, the way her lips moved as she groaned.  Pleasure left its exquisite mark all over her face. 

He lost himself.  His sense of being a single entity was gone.  His entire being only existed within this moment shared with Rae. 

He thought he might drown if he didn’t kiss her – it was a desperate need to have his lips on hers.

He realised that his mind was acutely aware of multiple things; the feel of sliding in and out of her, the sensation of her body moving under his, every place she touched him was on fire, her face, her mouth.  He was acutely aware of everything about her. 

_It was like seeing her in a new way, more naked than just not having clothes on._

_I saw her.  Really saw her._

_Every cell in my body was alive and filled with Rae Earl._

He felt electricity spreading out from his groin.  Felt that familiar ache in his balls.  Knew that he was close, he thrust harder, deeper, faster.

Rae’s moan was coupled with her fingers digging into his back her head rolling back in pleasure and her hips pushing back as hard as he pushed into her. 

He felt his innards grow tense.

_Oh my_

“Fucking god!”

The pleasure was so intense he thought his whole body might implode with it. 

He cried out as he felt himself explode into her.  He held her closer to him and pushed himself deeply into her as his orgasm shuddered through his body.  He felt her holding him tightly, pulling him into her, moaning loudly too. 

His breath came in ragged gasps and he slid his hands under her back and held her close to him, burying his face in her neck.

His body heaved for several minutes but he stayed there, still inside of her, their bodies pressed together.

Slowly his sense of himself returned and he realised,

“Oh fuck Rae, am I too heavy?”

“No you’re fine.”

He’d been lying on her, holding her close, not supporting his own weight.

“I mean, it’s hard to breathe, but I don’t want you to move.”

“I’m sorry!” he slid his arms out from under her and propped himself up, staying between her legs, and slowly kissed her.

_I think I could happily die between Rae’s thighs._

He laid down beside her and she rolled onto her side to face him.  He moved closer and draped his arm over her. 

“I think I’ve really changed Finn.  I think we’re gonna be ok.”

“I don’t want you to think you have to change to be with me.”

“No but I do.  You don’t want crazy Rae do you?”

“I’d take you as mad as they come.” 

She kissed him and moved closer so that their foreheads rested together. 

“I’m glad you’re back.”

“I never really left.  Me mind were always here.  With you.”

_The way she smiles at me does me in._

_I’m yours girl._

He kissed her again, again hoping that the emotion he felt would be translated into his kiss. 

“Am I right to stay tonight, or do you want me to go?”

“No, stay.”

“Alright Miss Earl.  If you insist.” 

She fell asleep a few moments later and Finn watched her sleep for a while.

_God, she’s so perfect._

_I can’t believe how lucky I am._

He stroked her face.

“Finn.”  She murmured.

_Me insides are buzzing.  Even when she’s asleep, I’m the one she’s thinking of._

He hugged up closer to her and enjoyed the feel of having her in his arms again. 

_I never thought that I’d get to hold her again._

_Don’t forget one second of tonight Finn._

Sometime later his eyes slowly shut and he slept more peacefully than he had in months. 

 

 

_ ‘Been Caught Stealing’ by Jane’s Addiction _

“Rae!  Are you in here?”  Her mum was knocking on the door.

Rae started awake, her eyes fell on Finn lying on his stomach, slowly stirring from sleep, his glorious naked body stretched out across her bed, one of his arms draped across her. 

_Oh shit!  What is she doing home so early?_

Rae looked over at the clock.

_9 am?_

_What the fuck happened?_

_Oh fuck, she’s opening the door._

“Yeah mum, I’m naked don’t open the door!”  Rae searched for the blankets; they’d been kicked under the bed, and dragged them up over her and Finn as he rolled onto his side, awake now. 

_Fuck, why the fuck did I say that?_

Her eyes fixed on Finn’s.

“Busted.”  He whispered to her with a conspiratorial grin. 

“It’s not like I haven’t seen it before!”  Linda started to open the door and Rae pushed Finn under the blankets. 

“Mum!”

“Still in bed at this hour?”

“I had a late night!”

“And since when do you sleep naked?”

“Oh you know.”  Rae shook her head and tried to look inconspicuous. 

Linda crossed the room and opened the curtains, she turned back to Rae and instantly saw that Rae was not alone in the bed. 

She paused, unsure how to feel.  She put he hands on the table behind her.  And then folded them in front of her.

“Who’s under the blankets?”  She finally said, her voice calmer than she felt. 

_Oh shit._

“No one.  What you talking about mum?”  Rae’s voice was higher pitched than normal.

Linda sat down on the bed next to Rae.  As she sat, Rae had to pull the blankets hard to keep them above her breasts. 

“I’m not angry Rae.  It was bound to happen eventually.  We all have sex.”

“Mum!”

“Even I have sex.  That might surprise you.”

“Not really.”

“Sex is a natural thing.”  Linda kept looking ahead, not able to look at her daughter, unsure what to feel at all. 

“I know mum.”

“And I knew that eventually you’d have sex.”

“Thanks mum.”

_I wish she’d stop saying sex.  It felt wrong having me mum sit on the bed that Finn and I had had sex in and were still lying nakedly in, banging on about sex._

Rae’s cheeks went red as she thought about Finn lying naked, just inches away from her mother.  She felt him trying not to laugh, and squeezed his hand hard to try and shut him up.

“I just hope that whoever he is deserves you my baby girl.”  Linda started to tear up.  “You’re a woman now.”  She hugged Rae.

“Oh my god mum.”

“And this boy that you had sex with…” her voice was getting shriller with emotion, “I hope he’s good enough for you.  And if he was good enough for you, he wouldn’t feel like he had to hide in the morning.  He’d be proud to be seen with you.” 

Rae heard him sigh resignedly.  And it was obvious that her mum had too because she turned to watch as Finn emerged from the blankets.

“ ‘morning Mrs-“

“You can call me Linda, Finn.  If you’re having sex with my little girl I think we’re on a pretty personal level now.”

“Mum!”  Rae interjected loudly.  Finn blushed and lowered his eyes. 

“Don’t you ‘Mum’ me, Rachel Earl.  If you’re going to have sex you have to live with the consequences!” 

“Kind of like having a baby?”

“Yes.  Like having a baby.”  She almost shrieked; “oh my god Rae!  Are you using contraception?  Are you even dating or are you just giving it out to anyone?”

“Oh my god Mum!”

“We’re dating.”  Finn answered, his cheeks red.

“Alright.”  That seemed to calm Linda down, she looked from Finn to Rae, “and what about contraception.”  She watched as Finn looked uncomfortably at Rae.

“Right.  Well we’re going to have to talk.”

“Can we get dressed Mum?”  Rae asked angrily, her face red with embarrassment. 

She passed her eyes from Rae back to Finn. 

“We’ll talk over breakfast.  Agreed?”

Rae and Finn nodded reluctantly.

She stood up and left the room without looking back.  Rae put her head in her hands.

“She’s so embarrassing.”

“Nah she’s alright.  Could’ve been much worse.  I’ve been kicked out of a girls’ house starkers before.  Your mum’s one of the nice ones.” 

_He’d been naked in other girls’ rooms._

_Of course I knew that he had.  But it hurt to hear it._

_I felt self-conscious of his hand on my thigh._

_But look at his smile.  He looks so happy._

He leaned forward for a kiss.

“You want a morning breath kiss?” 

“I want every kind of Rae Earl kiss there is.”

_His happiness was infectious, and his kiss was as smouldering as it ever had been._

_The way he kissed me – I knew he wanted me.  I knew he didn’t think of those other girls like he thinks of me._

_I felt his hands on my breasts and his urgency increasing as we fell back onto the bed._

“Fancy a quickie?”  He asked with a big grin.

“Alright, but we gotta be quiet.”

“Oh, you’re saying that to me?  Have you heard yourself?”  He laughed as he kissed her again.

“Shut up you cheeky bastard!”  She laughed through his kisses.  He was inside of her before she’d finished the sentence.

_We fucked._

_Not like how me and Liam fucked.  That were pretty one sided._

_This was much better._

_There’s an animal in Finn Nelson._

_And I like it._

_He kept his eyes on mine and fucked me hard and fast, his hand reached down and rubbed my clitoris while he hammered into me._

_It were fucking brilliant._

_When I came I had to bite his shoulder to stay quiet._

_He came at pretty much the same time I did.  I think he were holding back until I came._

_He’s so considerate._

 

“Come shower with me.  Help brace ourselves for what’s waiting for us downstairs.”  He chuckled and jumped out of the bed, holding his hand to her. 

_Oh my god.  Look at his body.  The way the sun shines on his skin._

_He’s perfect._

_And last night he made love to me._

_And this morning he fucked me like a rabid animal._

_I were right about him, he is a sex wizard._

_It’s so hard to not just keep staring at him._

_Is…?_

_Is he peeing?_

Rae stood at the door to her ensuite watching Finn’s back with wide, shocked eyes as lifted up the seat to the toilet and peed. 

“What are you doing?”  She asked, bewildered.

“Isn’t it obvious?”  He asked looking over his shoulder.

“I thought… you might want to close the door for that?”  He shook his head and dropped the seat before flushing. 

“How hot do you like it?”  He asked as he turned the taps on in the shower. 

“Um… pretty hot.”

“Good, me too.”  He kissed her again.  Rae looked at the toilet and back at Finn, his smiling face watching her. 

“Um… I need to pee.”

“Yep.”  He turned, picked up her soap and smelled it before putting it down. 

“Can you-“

“I’m ok.  You can go.”  He said as if she were asking if he were ok with her peeing, rather than asking him to give her some privacy.  He stepped into the shower and looked back cheekily at her, “don’t be too long though, I’ll get lonely.”

“Finn… I’m not-“

His head popped out of the shower.  And the look on his face had changed for chipper to understanding. 

“I won’t look at you Rae, and I can’t hear you in here.  Alright?”  He kissed her hard and then closed the door to the shower.  Rae turned around in the ensuite looking at the toilet.

_Ok.  So this was taking the relationship to a whole new level that I was not entirely expecting._

_He’s so cheeky and happy this morning._

_I like it._

She sat down on the toilet, warily eyeing the shower.  He didn’t re-appear and she felt relatively safe that she had some kind of privacy. 

_When I opened the shower door he had soap suds all over his body and he was facing the wall._

_Look at that arse.  I could weep.  I could also reach out and touch it._

_I mean couples who pee together could just reach out and touch each other’s arses right?_

He turned, beaming at her, and pulled her into the shower. 

“Alright Finn.”  She giggled as he pulled her to him. 

_I don’t even know how to handle so much happiness.  That gorgeous, stupid grin just won’t leave his face.  I wonder if this is what it’d be like to live with him._

He handed her the soap and kissed her.  As she took the soap, she looked at his shoulders with lust.

“Oh my god Finn, what happened to your shoulder?”

A large angry bruise was forming on his left shoulder.

“Well.  I was shagging this brazen hussy this morning” he smiled impishly, “she just couldn’t keep her hands off me.  And when she came, she bit me shoulder.”  He pecked her lips chastely and gave her a teasing look.

_Something about him calling me a brazen hussy made me feel sexy.  But I felt quite bad about the bruise on his shoulder, it did look pretty nasty._

“I’m sorry!”  He shrugged his shoulders in response, the smile never leaving his lips.  He sniffed his already soapy armpits and pulled a face.

“What do you want to do today?”  He asked as he took the soap back off her and soaped up his armpits again. 

“Um… well I’m looking forward to a pointless lecture and, or, sex education class from me mum.”

“Oh yes, that’ll be fun.”

“After that, I’ve got no plans.  It’s Saturday, I have a whole weekend free.”  She said suggestively. 

“Well I think me dad might want some company today for lunch.  Wanna come?”

_I just can’t help but feel happy when he’s smiling so much._

_But being happy also makes me feel worried.  Cos you know something’s gonna happen to kill it._

_Oh… Oh… he’s grabbing me, he’s kissing me neck… hmmmm_

 

“You had sex again before you came down here didn’t you?”  Linda asked annoyed.

“Twice.”  Finn answered seriously.  Linda opened her mouth in surprise. 

“How could you tell?”  Rae asked outraged at her mother keeping such a close eye on them, and deeply embarrassed too. 

“Well the light fitting swaying back and forth was the first give away.”  She was equally outraged.  “But it was listening to the floorboards creak in rhythm that really gave it away.”

“I had to listen to you and Karim hump like rabbits for months when I first got outta hospital!”  Rae countered.

“Well this is my house, I can have sex when I want.”

“Well so can I!”

“No you can’t!”

“Mum!  When we have sex isn’t your business!”

“You’re under my roof so it is my business!”  Linda waved her finger at Rae.

“Ok well, fine – I’ll stay at Finn’s house!”

“Are his parents going to pay all your bills?  Well Finn, will they?”

Finn looking slightly out of his depth opened his mouth to respond but got no words out before Linda was continuing

“If you want to go around being irresponsible and doing whatever you want Rachel Earl, then you need to move out and pay your own bills!”  Linda yelled.

“Fine I will!”  Rae yelled back as equally loud, but with tears coming into her eyes.  Finn knew he had to interject somehow. 

“That’s not what I’m trying to say Rachel.  I’m just trying to get you to be careful.  With your body and with your heart.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Linda looked sideways at Finn before shaking her head.

“Just that your first love isn’t always your only love.”

“I know that.”  Rae answered, realising that her mother thought Finn might leave her. 

“Regardless of that!”  Linda said, wanting to change the topic after seeing the realisation and subsequent hurt on Rae’s face.  “Are you using contraception?”  She stormed off into the kitchen, not waiting for an answer.  She came back with a condom and a banana.

“Oh you’ve got to be fucking joking.”

“Rachel Earl, don’t you swear at me.  I am going to teach you how to put a condom on this banana, so that you don’t end up getting pregnant when you don’t want to!”

“Kinda like you?  Twice.”

Linda looked at Rae, the sting of what Rae had said clear on her face.

“This is a great idea Rae, your mum can see that I know how to use condoms, and she’ll feel better.”  Finn tried to rescue the situation.

“Mum I’m on the pill!”  Rae countered Finn. 

“But you don’t know what diseases are out there.”  Linda was calmer now, but just as determined as before.

“Yeah but I’ve always used condoms in the past, so I know I’m clean, and Rae…  You’re clean right?”  Finn didn’t know if he was her first, and the thought suddenly struck him.  If he wasn’t he didn’t want to cause her anymore trouble with her mum by talking about it now, but if he was… he felt absurdly pleased with the idea and then disappointed with himself for that. 

“Yeah I’m clean.”  Rae was scarlet red with shame.

“Right, and we’re going out… so we’re exclusive, yeah?”

“Yes.”  Rae smiled at him, she realised he was trying to settle the situation.  And she loved him for it. 

“So, Linda,” Finn took the banana and condom carefully from her, “I’m making sure I look after your daughter,” He said as he opened the condom and expertly rolled it over the banana.  “Because I really like Rae, I care about her more than I care about myself.” 

Linda nodded shrewdly. 

“What do you mean by ‘always used condoms in the past’ Finn Nelson?  Are you not using them now with my daughter?  Is that how you show that you care about her?  You don’t care about her more than the pleasure of your own dick!”

“Mum!”  Rae was horrified.

“It’s alright Rae, she’s your mum, she just wants to know you’re ok.”  He turned back to Linda.  “Rae’s the first girl I haven’t used them with.  As she said, she’s on the pill, so we both thought it were ok.”

_But the truth was that we hadn’t talked about this at all.  We’d just fallen into bed together.  And I could see he was blushing, both from embarrassment and the shame he felt._

Linda sucked her teeth for a moment, looking really unimpressed.

“Well there’s not much I can do about it now is there?”  She said after a moment. 

“Not really.”  Rae answered equally unimpressed.

“Are you staying for breakfast Finn?”

“If you don’t mind.”  He answered, slightly scared.  She nodded curtly and went to the kitchen. 

“Your mother is a force to be reckoned with.”  He leaned over to Rae and whispered.

“I know.”

“You too though.”  He said, impressed,

“Oi!”  She laughed. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask you about protection, it were selfish.

“No it’s ok, I were prepared.”

“Lucky.”  He smiled as he let his fingers trace words on her thighs.   _‘I want you.’_

She smiled and kissed him.

“You didn’t have to do that, you know, answer all her questions.”

“Yeah I did.  She were upsetting you.  It’s my job to look after you, you’re my girl.  Besides, if we play nicely, she might let me stay overnight in your bedroom.”

_I am not only dating a sex wizard, but a kind, compassionate genius, who’s got my back._

_I love him so much._

_Is it too soon to tell him I love him?_

_It feels a bit desperate and stalker-ish._

_Maybe I’ll just stare at him lovingly for a bit._

 

***

 

_Me dad were embarrassingly happy to see Rae._

Gary Nelson took Rae into his arms and held her for a good long moment.

“I’m SO glad to see you Rae.  So glad.” 

“Alright?”  She smiled nervously as she pulled out of the hug. 

Rae looked sideways at Finn as Gary took her into his arms again, and then grabbed Finn and made it a group hug. 

“Leave off dad.”

“I’m just happy you’re home.”  He hugged Finn again and bit his bottom lip as he looked at Rae, “I’m so happy you’re here too Rae.”

“Thanks.”  Rae said bewildered. 

“Let’s eat!”  Gary bellowed excitedly.

“Oh!”  Rae jumped at his loud proclamation, “yeah.  There we go!”  She laughed as he guided her to the dining room.  Finn walking beside her, shaking his head in disbelief at his father’s behaviour.

“I paid Mary to come round and cook all your favourite food.”  He said as he opened the dining room door. 

“Dad… there’s enough food here to feed the whole country.” 

“Gotta make sure you’re well fed.  I think I made you make your own food too much before.  So Mary agreed to come round a few times a week to cook something nice for you.”

“Dad it’s fine.”  Finn tried to mend the damage that him leaving had done, rather inarticulately, leaving the room silent for a moment.

“Rae, try some of the roast pork!”  Gary handed her a plate and set about to cutting some pork for her. 

“Thanks.  How’s everything going Mr Nelson?”

“Please Rae, call me Gary.”

“Gary.”

“Well, we’ve almost finished unpacking Finn, and you’re here, so it’s just the school we’ve got left to crack.”

_I’m here?  Was I on Gary’s list of things to fix in Finn’s life?_

_Bloody hell._

“Will they let you back in?”  Rae was concerned.

“They said I was away for too long.  Might have to repeat second year.”

“We’ll see if they’ll let you take some make up tests.”  Gary answered with determination.

“I’m not worried dad.”

“Listen Finn, I’m thinking of cancelling the overnight conference.  Maybe I should just stay this weekend and help you finish unpacking.”

“No dad, I was kinda hoping Rae would help me.”  Finn answered awkwardly. 

“Oh?  Oh right.  Ok then.”  He winked at Rae and served up more food. 

_I’m not sure which parent was more embarrassing.  But Gary was kinda sweet, especially cos he made Finn squirm in his seat so much._

_I still struggled to eat in front of people but Finn was counting on me, and Gary was really excited I was there._

_So I ate._

_And it was ok._

_They didn’t seem to judge me when I wanted a second serve of the roast potatoes.  And I’ve never seen anyone put as much food away as Finn does.  He ate more food in one sitting, than I eat in a day.  And he still went downstairs for a sandwich after we’d shagged in his bedroom._

_His father went to the conference after lunch, and we had the place to ourselves for the rest of the weekend._

_It were sexed up bliss._

_Still not used to him peeing in front of me though._

_Boys are weird._

 

 

_ ‘Beautiful Freak’ by Eels _

Archie always enjoyed it when the sun shone down on winter mornings. 

He stopped at the lights and stretched, feeling happy. 

_Mondays are normally shite.  But this was the last Monday of school before the Christmas break, and we had truly outdone ourselves with planning the festivities for Rae’s birthday._

He’d spent a good deal of last night on the phone to Finn organising the final details.

He’d managed to talk to Linda this morning before Rae was out of bed.  Apparently the baby crying all of last night had kept everyone awake.  Linda had answered the door looking frazzled and exhausted. 

Archie had explained the plan, and, as per Chloe’s advice, informed her that it was already mostly paid for. 

Linda had agreed almost instantly, Archie wasn’t sure if it was because the baby was sleeping and she wanted him to go away before he woke her up or if she genuinely didn’t mind or even thought it was a good idea.  He didn’t really care either way.

_Thank fuck school is nearly over._

_I don’t like college without Finn there._

_Still, nothing is going to ruin my good mood today.  Last week of school._

And suddenly someone punched him in the back of the head.  Archie fell forward onto his hands and knees.  His innards reeling with fear.

Simmy was standing over him.

“Hey fag.  Got AIDS yet?”

“Fuck off Simmy.”  Archie scrambled to his feet, his head pounding. 

“I’m gonna bash your brains in Archie boy.”

Archie backed away, and looked up and down the street, they were alone. 

“No one’s here to help you faggot.”

Simmy grabbed his shirt and pushed him back into the wall.

“What’s happening here?”  A man looked out of his window, his car slowly rolling.

“Nothing.”  Simmy answered, letting go of Archie’s shirt and pretending to pat out all of the creases.  The man looked unconvinced and looked to Archie.

“Do you need a lift somewhere?”  He asked Archie.

“Yes, please.”  Simmy watched him as he jumped into the passenger side of the car. 

“Hi I’m Tom.”  The man said as Archie got in.

“Archie.”  Said without looking at him.

“Where you headed?”

“Just the chip shop.”

_You’re ok Archie.  You’re ok._

_Stop shaking.  It’s fine._

_That fucker’s gonna come after me again._

_It’s alright, you just have to plan yourself better._

_I shouldn’t have to!_

“Are you ok?”  Tom looked at Archie momentarily before returning his eyes to the road. 

“Yeah I’m fine.  Actually no I’m not.”

“Did I hear that dickhead call you a faggot?”

Archie lowered his eyes even further, his face red with shame and embarrassment. 

_Great, now I’ve got strangers banging on about it._

“Yeah.”  Archie said without raising his eyes. 

The car stopped outside of the chip shop.

Tom took out his wallet and retrieved a business card for Archie. Archie took it and looked at the card

“I teach boxing, down at the-“.

“Yeah me mate Finn learns boxing there.”

“Yeah I know Finn.  I teach him sometimes.”

“I don’t know if I’d be any good at boxing.”  Archie looked up at Tom.  He had large blue eyes and golden brown hair. 

“Well we could give it a go.  Self-defence is your best option right now.” 

Archie felt his stomach lurch.

_Oh my god, he looks like a Greek god._

_He’s so incredibly good looking._

_I just want him to…_

_Oh shit, I sound like Rae talking about Finn don’t I?_

Archie blushed and lowered his eyes.

“I guess I can give it a go.”

“Great.”

“Thanks for the lift.”

“No worries.  Don’t let that fucker get to you, alright?”

Archie nodded, feeling strangely better when Tom smiled at him. 

“See you around.”

 

 

_ ‘Alright’ by Supergrass _

_I liked our mornings at the chip shop, having breakfast and a chat before school._

Izzy was yawning as Archie sat down. 

“Alright Iz, get any sleep last night?”  Archie joked.

“Yeah I slept for ages, still tired though.”

“Me too.”  Chloe sympathised. 

Finn and Chop entered together, organising a few last things for Rae’s birthday present.

“Mate, I can’t do it for less than that.”  Finn scrunched up his face and shook his head.

“Ok.  That’s how much it’s gotta cost then.  And that’s all of it?”

“Yeah I’ve already done most of what you want, there’s just a few things left.”  Chop looked at a scrawling list with most of the things ticked off. 

“And it’ll be ready on time?”  Finn was deadly serious about this. 

“It’ll be tight, especially with that fucking budget – I am doing you a right proper favour mate.  I’ll get it done though.  Wouldn’t let our Rae-Rae down.”  Chop grinned conspiratorially. 

_I hate that they haven’t let Finn back into school yet.  He’s working at least.  That’s keeping him sane.  But I miss having him in me classes._

_I wonder if I should ask him about Tom?_

“Right people.”  Chop said, “everyone got their pounds?”  They all reached into their pockets and put money onto the table.  Chop gathered it and counted it. 

“Great.  How much do you girls need for booze and decorations?”

“At least a hundred pound.”  Izzy answered looking at Chloe for confirmation.

“Hundred fucking quid?”  Chop gave her a dirty look, “fucking hell.”

“Give them the money Chop!”  Archie and Finn yelled at him.

“Better spend it well.”  Chop said as he took some of the money out of the pile and gave it to them. 

“Rae’s mum’s ok with it.”  Archie reported.

“I knew she would be.”  Chloe smiled.

“Are we still doing the Friday lunch thing?”

“Yeah Linda and I already talked about that – Karim’s planning and paying for that – don’t worry about it.”  Chloe said.

“Oh thank fuck for that.  I was starting to think I’d have to sell a fucking kidney to afford this fucking thing!”  Archie laughed. 

_Tom had made me forget about the shit with Simmy._

_All I could think about were those stunning blue eyes._

_I wonder what he looks like under his jacket?_

_Boxing lessons, here I come!_

_But they’d have to wait until after the holiday.  I suppose._

“I’ll get us some food then.”  Chop wandered off to the counter. 

“Ah here she is!”  Archie declared as Rae walked in, her sunnies firmly in place partially hiding a grumpy, exhausted face.

Finn kissed her lips and she perked up a little.

“Aiesha playing up all night?”  He asked as he brushed the hair from her face.  She nodded.

“She’s cute and all, but I think she’s trying to kill me.”  Rae yawned, and that set Izzy and Chloe off again. 

Archie shared an amused glance with Finn from the sides of their eyes. 

Chop returned with bags of chips and scallops. 

“Not hungry.”  Izzy said as he tried to pass her a scallop.

“Alright?”  He asked as he sat down next to her.

“Yeah, I think this ear infection’s just getting to me.”  She poked at her ear miserably and Chop kissed her.

“You need anything?”  He asked softly.  This was a private conversation.  The rest of the gang turned to plans for the winter break coming up soon.  They had a few weeks off over Christmas, starting from this Friday.

“Me mum’s invited you all to me birthday lunch.  But I don’t think she’s expecting you all to come.  Cos of school.”

“It’s the last day of school.”  Chloe said with a grin.  “Of course we’ll all be there!”

“I know.  So we’re having a big lunch thing at the house, I think Karim’s doing all the cooking.  She usually does me dinners on me birthday, I don’t know why it’s a lunch this time.”

Everyone was silent. 

_Oh fuck.  We hadn’t thought of this.  What excuse could we make?_

“It’s probably Aiesha babe, probably doesn’t want her up too late?” 

_Good ol’ Chloe – always thinking of something.  She’s been the saviour of this endeavour on more than one occasion.  She always knows what to say to stop Rae from getting too suspicious._

“Probably, now I think about it.”  Rae agreed as she took a few chips.

“It’s the third.”  They heard Izzy say softly in the silence.  Chop put his hand up to her ear and looked worried. 

“It’s just an ear infection Chop.”  Izzy was touched by his concern.

“Third one.”

“Yeah but I’m a swimmer Chop, we’re prone to them.” 

“That’s right.”  He perked up.

 

As they approached the school a woman pulled up on a motorbike.  She kicked the stand and got off, turning to look around as she took her helmet off.  She nodded ‘good morning’ at the principal, who smiled warmly in return.

_I like the new vice principal and performing arts teacher.  She always makes you feel like she’s on your side._

Archie noticed Rae smiling.  Rae always smiled when she saw Elsa. 

“Finn.”  She said softly, but her Australian accent projected to them nonetheless.  He separated from the group and went over to her.

“Hi Elsa.”

“I’m glad I ran into you.  You’ll be permitted back into school in the new year, but you’ll have to sit some make up exams.  Any of them that you don’t pass you’ll have to repeat the subject next school year.  Understood?”  She said as she shoved her riding gloves into her helmet and grabbed her backpack from under the seat.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“I managed to get you back in based on your excellent science and music performance in your first year.  I expect to see you pass those make up exams at the very least.  Hopefully we’ll get you past English, but I think you’ll probably have to repeat the year for that.”  Finn shrugged.

“I don’t mind, really.”

Elsa’s eyes strayed to Rae.

“No I don’t suppose you do.  But I’d like you try your hardest on those make up exams nonetheless.  It took me a lot of pissing around with dickhead administrators to make this happen.”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

 

***

 

_Dear Diary_

_This week was dragging its arse like a dog with worms on a shag pile carpet._

_Aiesha was killing the mood at my place and every time we was at Finn’s place, his dad just wanted to hang out with us.  He’d missed Finn quite a bit._

_Consequently since our lovely get-back-together weekend shag-fest we hadn’t been able to fuck.  And it were Tuesday.  That’s two fucking days if we don’t break this drought tonight._

_I know Finn’s frustrated cos every time we touch he groans, just softly in the back of his throat, every kiss and his hands are on me.  He’s as horny as me, and the world is conspiring against us getting our sex on._

_At lunch time he came to spend it with us; he does that when his work hours let him.  And he stared at me like a starving man._

_It were dead sexy._

_Sometimes I try to imagine what he’s seeing when he looks at me like that._

_But when I do that, I just end up imaging a thin version of myself dressed in sexy lingerie, or naked with a waxed snatch, and giving him the eye.  I don’t think I even know how to give him the eye._

_Am I not sexy?_

_I can’t do that sexy stuff._

Rae screwed up her face and Finn’s lustful look changed to one of curiosity.

“What’s going on in your head girl?”  He asked as he moved closer to her. 

“I’m trying to figure out how to seduce you.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”  Archie said and screwed up a piece of paper and threw it at her, while Chloe and Izzy broke out into laughter.  Finn caught the ball of paper before it hit Rae and pegged it back hard at Archie who ducked it. 

“No,” she turned to the gang, “but seriously, how do you seduce a guy.”

“Have a vagina.”  Chloe answered as if she was joking, but the cynicism in her voice was obvious.

“I don’t think that’ll work for me.”  Archie chimed in.  The gang laughed, and Finn smiled but kept his eyes on Rae as she looked to Izzy.

“What do you do Iz?”

“I just start taking me clothes off – that usually does it.” 

Finn’s grin grew as Rae screwed her face up more. 

“Sounds like Chop!”  Chloe laughed.

“Oi!  What do you mean?”  Izzy laughed and mock hit her on the arm. 

“He’s just likes you that much Iz, that you don’t have to do nought to get him going.”

Rae frowned as the conversation continued.  Finn leaned in and put his mouth to her ear.

“You’re doing it right now.” 

She turned her face to his and he kissed her lips.

“Gotta go back to work.  Gotta make money.”  He whispered with his lips still on hers in between small kisses, “I’ll see you at mine tonight, yeah?”  He pulled back and looked at her. 

“Yeah, after me job trial.”

“Good luck with that Miss Earl.  Knock ‘em dead.”  Finn’s fingers traced down her face before his lips found hers and kissed her hard.  “Tonight.”  He kissed her again and sauntered off, lighting a cigarette as he went. 

“I’ve never seen him like this.”  Archie mused and then looked meaningfully at Rae.

“What?”  Rae tried to hide that she was blushing by showing an unusually high level of attention to her nails. 

_It made me happy what Arch said.  But it made me wonder what he were like with his other girlfriends._

_Don’t think about it, you don’t need this._

_But how many girlfriends had he had?_

_I knew Stacey and Olivia.  Was it Stacey’s mum that had kicked Finn out in nought but his skin?  Or were it some other girl._

_Suddenly I felt totally unequipped to handle a Finn._

_He were experienced._

_I weren’t._

_You can’t count one blowjob and a shag with Liam as experience.  I spent most of that in a depressed haze of self-hate.  I didn’t even want to think about that time._

“Guys.  I’m serious though.  How do you seduce a guy?”  Rae looked straight at Chloe, and after a minute of thinking Izzy also turned her eyes to Chloe.  Chloe looked at them and laughed.

“Alright!  Well I read in cosmopolitan magazine-“

“Oh for fuck’s sake!”  Archie groaned.

“Alright Arch?”  Chloe elbowed him.

“I need Finn back.”  He looked longingly after Finn. 

“You could learn something from this too!” 

“Oh right, of course!”  He shook his head, bemused. 

“Women need to maintain the mystique.”

“Yeah, that’ll help me.”  Archie answered sarcastically.  Chloe tutted and rolled her eyes at him.

“Maintain the mystique?  What does that even mean?”  Izzy scrunched her nose up.

“Men need to have an air of mystery.  They like the idea of a woman, rather than the reality.”  Chloe informed then with a sage nod of her head.

“I still don’t know what that means.”  Rae said looking unimpressed.

“It’s like, they like a woman in sexy underwear right?”  Chloe said as if asking one of life’s great mysteries, “But they don’t want to see the sexy underwear drying on the line.”

“Oh bollocks!”  Archie scoffed.

“No really Archie!”  Chloe argued, “It’s all about maintaining an image of sexy so he never gets bored of you.  You don’t show him all those little boring things you have to do.  Like, don’t put your make up on in front of him.  My mum said to never eat corn in front of men, like do any stuff that might make you look ugly in front of them.  And you don’t fart in front of them, ever!” 

“Rae farts in front of me!”

“Oh shut up Arch!”

 

Elsa sat on the stage talking to Izzy. 

_Izzy was struggling with the writing task, and I had to admit that the idea of writing a scene in a play was really hard, but even more so when you had to work in groups, and Stacey bloody Stringfellow was in my group._

_Elsa was pretty annoyed that they’d put all the performing arts kids from both first and second year into one class, but I didn’t mind it.  It meant we had Archie in with us.  Unfortunately for me and Chloe, Archie and Izzy were working in another group._

_Chloe and me was stuck with Stacey and Amy.  Stacey was constantly saying stuff to Chloe about being a slut.  I tried to shut her up, and Chloe looked like it didn’t bother her, but sometimes I’d see her staring off with that look in her eye I saw at Ian’s.  But she’d always come back to being my Chloe if I said anything._

“Don’t open your legs Chloe, the black hole between them would suck us all in.” 

“Fuck off Stacey.” 

_I hate Stacey._

“Finn’s definitely dropped his standards since you Stacey.” 

_But I fucking hate Amy more._

“Alright,” Chloe said smiling, “you’re just pissed off cos both your lads went to Rae.” 

_I love Chloe._

“Yeah, they just know fat girls give it up easier.”  Amy’s eyes flashed with anger.

“Wouldn’t they just go to Chloe if they wanted easy?”  Stacey smiled sweetly in return.

“Do you know girls, the idea that a girl’s worth is based on how many times she’s had a guy between her legs is bullshit.”  Elsa had appeared behind Stacey, a pen held between her fingers like a cigarette.  “It doesn’t matter if you’ve had sex never or if you’ve had it a thousand times with a hundred different people, it doesn’t lessen your worth.  You’re still valid and important as human being regardless of your sexual history.”  She pointed at Amy and Stacey, “I’ll talk to you two after class.” 

_I love Elsa.  It’s not just that she lets us call her by her first name, or that she’s Australian and her accent is funny.  It’s not just that she swears and she lets us swear, and talk about real stuff in our performing arts projects, like drugs and getting pregnant and having sex.  It’s that she’s fat.  And she’s sexy.  She wears nice clothes that hug her body.  She rides a motorbike and she eats in front of people.  She seems to be really ok with her body.  And she’s fat!  And she says nice things just at the right time, like what she just said; I know Chloe needed to hear that.  And so did I._

_Plus she got Finn back into school._

“I read your working draft of your first person narrative Rae.  I loved it, you’re a very talented writer, so I’d like you to take the lead in writing the school play for this year’s end of year performance.  Maybe even do some directing?  You could certainly do that instead of perform if you like?”

_Did I mention that I love Elsa?_

 

 

_ “Buy Me A Pony” by Spiderbait _

_It were a real trendy store, with crappy music playing and lots of thin blond girls who all looked at me when I walked in.  I don’t even know how I got this job trial.  But me mum telling me that my sex life were her business while I was under roof made me think seriously for the first time about moving out._

_I just had to earn some money._

_I didn’t like that I had to wear the clothes that the store sold though.  They gave me the biggest size and it still stuck to me like flies on shit.  I looked like an overstuffed frankfurter._

“How’s it going in there Rae?”

_Oh shit._

“Fine.”

“Well show me how you look dear.”

“Um… well do you have a bigger size?”

“No we don’t Rae.”  Karen said as she opened the curtain.

_Fucking hell!_

“Karen!”

“You look fine Rae, exactly as I envisioned.  Now come do your trial.  You’ll be on the floor for an hour, and then I’ll let you know if we’ll hire you.”

Rae looked back at the mirror unconvinced. 

_The buttons on me shirt are practically popping, she must be joking,_

“But… but the clothes don’t fit.”

“Yes I know.”  She answered with warm smile.  “What’s the problem?”

“Well…”

“I knew they wouldn’t fit you, it’s fine.  Really it is.”

“But… Aren’t I supposed to be selling clothes for you… how does this help?“  Rae motioned at her shirt.

“Sweetheart.  People will buy our clothes, because when they look at you, they’ll know they’ll look better in them.  You’re here to make the customers feel good about themselves.  Now don’t be downcast about it pet, everyone’s got their place in the world.  Look at Maisie.  Skinny as they come but have you seen her teeth?  Girls look at her, and know they’re prettier.  It makes them buy more.”

_I stood out on that floor, with Maisie, my supervisor, and tried to help customers and sell clothes._

_My body felt like it were about the size of the Titanic._

_As I stood there, or got smaller sizes for girls in change rooms, or folded clothes, I felt more and more ugly.  The way they looked at me, you could see it in their eyes.  Some felt real superior.  But some pitied me – and that were the worst._

_When my hour was up, Karen told me that I did a good job and that me sales were good, that she’d love to have me on board, gave me ten quid for tonight, and asked if I could I work tomorrow night.  I told her that I had to check with me mum, but that I’d call her._

_I was supposed to call Finn to get him to pick me up.  But I just wanted to walk home and be alone._

Rae pulled her jacket around her, glad to be in her own clothes and started to walk as fast as she could away from the shop. 

“Rae.”

She turned to see Finn, on his motorbike.

“I waited for you.”  He grinned.

_Don’t cry._

_But it were too late, I were already crying before I’d seen him and now that he were here, all the emotion of the last hour poured out of me._

“What’s wrong?”  He jumped off his bike and took her into his arms.

“Can we not do this here?”  She asked quietly.

“Yeah sure.  I’ll drive us home.”

 

***

 

Finn put the tea in front of Rae and sat next to her.

_She looks pale.  I wonder if she needs a doctor._

_Oh no she’s crying again.  What do I do?_

_I hate it when I don’t know what to do._

“What happened?”  His voice was quiet and soothing.

“I don’t…”

_She’s really crying now._

_Fuck… I wish Me Nan were here, she’d know what to do._

He stroked her back calmly and bit his bottom lip.

_Come on Finn, think of something._

“You know Finn, I think that you don’t need to repay this loan to me so quickly, you should save-“ He’d been walking in, looking at his bank statement and stopped mid-sentence as he saw Finn looking tortured and Rae crying. 

“Oh fuck, you’re not breaking up again are you?”

“No Dad.”  Then Finn, looking worried turned to Rae, “are we?”

“No.”  She smiled through her tears and shook her head, “no.”

“Oh thank Christ for that.”  Gary let out deep breath and looked pleased for a moment, before remembering what was happening.  “Oh shit, sorry Rae, are you ok?  What happened?”

“Dad.”  Finn’s voice made it very clear that Gary was not welcome at the moment.

“Oh right.  Yes of course.  Might go down to the pub for a couple of beers then.”

“Thanks Dad.”

Finn watched his dad attempt to leave the room inconspicuously, before turning back to Rae.

“What can I do to make it better?”

“I want to sleep for about a thousand years.”  She looked downcast and tears leaked slowly from her eyes.

“Ok.”

Finn took her hand and led her up to his room.  They laid down together and he wrapped his arms around her. 

_I tried not to be bothered that she didn’t tell me what upset her._

_We really did need to learn how to talk to each other._

 

A few hours later the door opening woke Finn from his snooze.  Rae was still sleeping tightly tucked into his arms.  He saw his dad creeping across his room as if he were a jewel thief. 

“Hi.”  He whispered as he got close enough, “Rae’s mum called.” 

“Oh fuck.  I didn’t even hear the phone ring.”  Finn hissed and gently laid his hand over Rae’s ear.  She didn’t stir. 

“It’s alright, I told her that there was an accident or something but that Rae’s ok and she’ll stay here tonight.”

“Thanks dad.”

“I told her I were making up the spare bedroom.”

“Dad.”

“Finn, I know you went to Leeds and lived like an adult for a bit.  But you’re still me son, and…”

“I know.”

“Parents set boundaries Finn.”

“Yeah dad, but not this one.  Please?”

Gary looked at Rae’s sleeping face for a moment and then back up at his son.  Indecision and concern mixed on his face, until eventually he sighed, resigned.

“Alright.  But neither of you ever tell Linda.  And it’s your job to clean the bathroom from now on.”

“Deal.”

“Is she ok?”

“I don’t know.  She hasn’t talked yet.  She just wants to sleep.”

“You worried?”

“What d’you think?  Of course I’m fucking worried.”

“Finn.”

“Sorry.”

“Right.  Well, try and get some sleep.”  He crept out of the room, bent low as if that would make him quieter.  Finn shook his head at him and watched him slowly close the door. 

“You awake?”  He asked softly.  But she didn’t move.  He took his hand off her ear and stroked her hair gently. 

She stirred slightly when his belly grumbled a moment later, but she didn’t wake up. 

 

 

_ ‘Carwash Hair’ by Mercury Rev _

_He were closing the door when I woke up.  I looked over at the clock.  3am.  Shit._

He had a plate with some food on it and a cup.  He put them down, scratched his ear and took his jeans off.

Rae leaned over and switched on the bedside light.

“Oh fuck, did I wake you?”

“No.”

“Do you want half me sandwich?”  He grinned at her.

“Yeah.”  She felt herself smile in response. 

_His hair looks like he’s been shagging all night._

_How is it that he can make me feel so good, even though I had a shit day, just by grinning at me?_

He sat down on the bed and handed her half the sandwich.

“You already cut it?” 

Finn never cut his sandwiches.

“Just in case.” 

“Thanks.”  She took a bite and felt her stomach growl loudly.

“I can make you another one if you want.”  He laughed hearing the growl.

“Nah it’s alright.” 

Finn took a large bite of his sandwich and a swig of his drink. 

_I like the way he eats, he’s so un-self-conscious.  I’d like to eat like that._

_But I don’t look like Finn._

_I look like this._

_And I need to lose weight._

_If I’m ever gonna get a job.  If I’m gonna keep Finn, I need to go on a diet._

“Do you wanna tell me what happened?”  Finn asked cautiously.

“I just didn’t get the job.” 

“Oh shit.  I’m sorry Rae.  Were they bastards about it?”

“Yeah.”

_I could see the relief in his face.  It were nothing serious in his mind._

_I like it when he takes me into his arms.  I think he does it when he doesn’t know what to say._

_God he smells good._

_Like sex._

_It didn’t matter how Finn smelled, it smelled like sex to me._

Rae ran her hand up his inner thigh, under his boxers, her fingers stopping short of the swell of his cock. 

“I wouldn’t do that Miss Earl if you plan on sleeping again tonight.”  He whispered lustily and she saw movement in his boxers. 

“Maybe I’ve slept enough.” 

_Finn dropped the plate on the floor and practically dove on me._

_There has been nothing sexier in the history of the entire world than Finn Nelson hungry for sex, and there never will be._

He stripped his boxers off and in the next movement had started on her pants. 

_He were inside me before either of us had taken our tops off.  And he thrust so fast and hard and deep that I thought me insides would explode from it._

He kissed her and started to undo her shirt, slowing down his thrusts and keeping himself as deep in her as he could. 

_When I was naked with him, and he were inside me, it were like the whole world didn’t exist._

_He kissed my body like a man starving._

_Look at his fucking scruffy hair._

Rae ran her hands through his hair and down his face, he kissed her hands as they moved near his lips.

Finn slowed down again, his kisses growing slow and long and punctuated with long moments of looking into her eyes as he stroked her face and her hair.

_He kept looking like he were about to say something.  But instead of saying it, he’d kiss me with a passion that made me breathless._

_I loved that he could be fucking me one minute, and making love to me the next.  It made me feel like he lusted after me frantically and loved me desperately in equal measures and the two were always fighting for expression when we had sex.  It were a nice fantasy._

_I were so right to have sex instead of talk the night we got back together, when we had sex, nothing else mattered._

 

_He still pees in front of me._

_Still not sure how I feel about that._

He’d put the shower on to warm and peed, Rae standing behind him trying to look somewhere else. 

_Oh bloody hell, who the fuck has a full length mirror on the back of their bathroom door?_

_I don’t want to see that._

She looked away from her reflection, but as she did she saw a pimple on the side of her arse.

_Oh no._

_Oh fuck._

_What was it Chloe said – maintain the mystique._

_He can’t see this._

She jumped in the shower.

“Oh fuck it’s cold!” 

“I told you it’d take a while to warm up!”  He laughed as he got in.  “Shit!”  He shivered. 

Instantly he started kissing her, his hands running up and down her sides.

_Oh god, I don’t want him to find the zit._

_I just have to focus on keeping his hands away from there.  Easy._

_Oh my god… he’s got his fingers in me._

Rae felt her head lean back against the wall and a groan escaped her lips. 

“Good morning Miss Earl.”  Finn smiled cheekily.  He pressed his body against hers and kissed her lips.  “You know, I’m quite keen to taste your cunt.”

“Cunt?”  Rae opened her mouth in surprise, scandalised. 

_I’d never heard me lady bits be called a cunt before.  It were so sexy and dirty coming from his mouth._

_And he fucking knew it._

He slid his fingers out of me and put the tips of them into his mouth.

“Tasting your cunt like this isn’t enough.”  He kissed her neck and started to rub her clitoris.  “I want to bury my face in your cunt.”

_Oh my god.  Finn Nelson was as dirty as they came._

_And I really liked it._

Rae started to groan louder.

“Shh.”  He whispered in her ear.  As he rubbed his body against her rhythmically, his fingers speeding up. 

“Bite on this.”  He put the side of his hand in her mouth and slipped a finger inside of her, still rubbing her clitoris fast.

“The next time we’re alone Rae Earl, I’m going to lick your cunt for so long, you won’t be able to walk for an hour after.”

She came, as quietly as she could, biting into his hand, he winced but smiled lustily. 

“I fucking love making you cum.”  He whispered into her ear.

He got out of the shower looking very satisfied and looked back.

“Oh hey, that’s a good zit.”  He said as he looked back and saw the pimple on Rae’s rump.

_Oh no._

_I just wanted to bury my head somewhere and never be seen again._

He reached over and popped it. 

“Ugh!”  He laughed as he let the shower water wash the pus away and turned to grab a towel.

“Did you just pop my pimple?”  Rae’s face was a picture of disgust.

“Yeah.”  He didn’t look back.

_What.  The.  Fuck._

“You pee in front of me… you pop my pimples…”

“What?”  He turned around, concerned by her serious tone.

“What about my mystique?”

“You what?” 

_He’s so cute when he’s confused._

“Doesn’t that stuff gross you out… or make me seem less… interesting.”

“No.  It were a zit.  We all get ‘em.”  He shrugged. 

“Yeah I know.”

“And… I dunno… I feel comfortable around you… so I…”  He shrugged and looked like he was thinking hard, “I can stop peeing in front of you if it grosses you out.”  He looked really concerned. 

_Suddenly it seemed imperative that Finn continue to pee in front of me._

_I never thought that this was a sentence that would exist in my life, and yet here it was._

_It was the weirdest thing that had happened to me in a while._

“No it’s fine.  I just… you’re not like other boys.  I’m not used to it.” 

He bit his lip and furrowed his brows.

“Is that good or bad?” 

_He was actually worried I thought he might be bad._

_Oh Finn Nelson…_

_I love him so much._

“It’s good.” 

_And that smile of his.  He makes me feel as though I make him happy – me – as if I am the source of his happiness._

_He’s perfect._

 

 

_ ‘Waiting For The Miracle’ by Leonard Cohen _

“I’ve decided to go on a diet.” 

Kester appraised her as she sat calmly, her arms crossed over her stomach. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea Rae.”  He said finally, “We’re trying to normalise your relationship with food.”

“I’m sick of being fat.”

Kester sat forward in his chair and pulled his ear before speaking.

“What’s happened?”

Rae looked away. 

“I went for a job trial.  They wanted to hire me cos I made customers feel good about themselves.”

“Well that’s good.”  He said with mild confusion. 

“I made them feel good about themselves because when they looked at me, they knew they were prettier.  Knew the clothes would look better on them.”

“And the employer said that to you?”  His jaw clenched slightly. 

“Yep.”

“And so you believe that the best thing to do is to lose weight?”

“Yeah.  That wouldn’t’a happened if I were normal.”

Kester took a breath and leaned back in his chair, crossing his leg and folding his hands on his lap.  He looked thoughtfully at her. 

“If a child is beaten by a bully because they wear glasses, would you tell that child to stop wearing glasses to stop the bullies?”

“No but that’s different.  You can’t help needing glasses.  I can help being fat.”

“Your mother has dieted all of life.  Do you think it’s helped?”  He cocked his head slightly and waited for her to respond.

Rae fidgeted with her sleeves and looked at the floor.

“She weren’t doing it right.”

“And you think you can do it right?”

“Yeah.”

“Rae,” he shook his head slightly, “you can’t hate yourself into being something you’ll love.  When the world is shit, it doesn’t mean that your answer is to change yourself.  It’s the world that’s shit, not you.”

He saw the tears in her eyes and opened his mouth to say more.

“Did I see Liam up here the other day?”  She said.  Kester pursed his lips but decided not to push the topic this session. 

“Yes, he came to ask me to come back to group.”

“Are you gonna let him?”

Kester grimaced in thought.

“I don’t think it would be beneficial for either you or him to be in the same therapy group.”  He replied carefully.

“It’s alright.  I can leave group and just come to you.  I prefer it anyway.”

“I’ll have a think about what’s best to do with Liam.”

 

 

_ ‘Connection’ by Elastica _

_Thursday nights were always packed at the pub, but tonight it were real full.  None of the gang were going to school tomorrow.  It were the Christmas break and, more importantly, it were my birthday tomorrow._

_The gang had managed to carve out a space at our usual table, Danny were joining us this evening; he and Chop were getting to be real good mates, and no one minded that sometimes he were a little weird._

_We’re all a little weird sometimes._

“Right, what does everybody want?”  Danny stood up, “my shout!” 

Orders came flying in – pints all round.

_Chop had gotten Danny a job with him at the mechanics.  Apparently Danny were real good with numbers, and he were keeping the books for them now._

“So what are we doing Friday night?”  Rae asked them, “it’s my birthday, so I think we’ll have to go big!”

“My mum and dad want me to stay home.  I’m sorry, but I’ll be there for the lunch.”  Chloe reached out and took Rae’s hand.

“Your parents are evil keeping you home on a Friday night!”

“I think they’re just glad I’m home.”

_It were the first time she’d talked about what had happened.  I saw Izzy and Chop exchange a glance and Finn squeezed my thigh._

“Yeah of course.”

“But you guys should go out without me.”  She smiled wanly at the gang, “it’s Rae’s birthday.”

“No.  Maybe I’ll just stay in.”

“No!”  Archie put his arm over her shoulders, “We’re coming to the pub after your lunch.  You’ll be able to join us for some of it right Chloe?”

“Yeah, for a bit!”

_Friday night was gonna be great.  It were bad Chloe couldn’t be there, but I were determined to have fun tomorrow._

“So are you seeing anyone Danny?”  Izzy leaned forward to hear the gossip, Danny’s sex stories were always the best.

“No.  Not at the moment.”

“Seen anyone since Rae?”  She pushed.  Danny looked around the table, lastly seeing Finn’s eyes narrow slightly before he looked away grumpily. 

“I didn’t really see Rae.” 

_Oh fuck._

_I could feel everybody’s eyes go from Danny to me, but mostly I felt Finn’s eyes on me, trying to see right into me skull._

“I just said all that stuff to make Finn jealous.  It were my idea.”  Danny answered their silent questions with a proud smile.

_Oh.  My.  God._

_Danny shut up!_

“You what?”  Finn’s face was filled with amused incredulity. 

“Well, Rae were saying that she liked you, right-“

“No Danny shut up!”  She threw a beer mat at him and he batted it away awkwardly. 

“No!”  Archie yelled over her, “We have to hear this!”

Finn put an arm around her and smiled cheekily.

“Yeah I agree with Archie.”  He pulled her closer and she buried her burning face in his chest while Danny continued.

“And I told her that I should go to the party and pretend to be her ex-boyfriend to make you jealous.  She told me not to, but I knew it were a good plan.”

“How was it a good plan Danny?”  Rae popped her head up exasperatedly.

“It worked.”

“Us getting together doesn’t mean it worked Danny.”

“No, I mean, he were jealous.”  Danny nodded at Finn.  Rae looked up at Finn, who was trying to look unconcerned by the whole conversation. 

“You know what Danny, now that you mention it, you’re right!”  Izzy laughed, “you asked Danny to stop talking about Rae, Finn – you were so jealous!”  The gang laughed and jeered, another beermat was thrown before Finn conceded. 

“Yeah alright, I were jealous.”

“Why were you jealous?”  Rae laughed with the rest of the gang.

“At the time, I didn’t know I were jealous.”  He shrugged.

“He was jealous because he liked you Rae!”  Danny answered as if it were obvious.

“I didn’t even know I liked you though.”  Finn said almost apologetically to Rae.

“Well, when did you know you liked Rae?”  Chloe asked curiously.

“Yeah cos you were chasing a buncha girls when we first met Rae.”  Chop added, “I’d like to know when the Raemundo stole your heart.”

“I don’t know.”  Finn was starting to blush and Rae enjoyed that, “It came on real slow like, so I can’t say exactly when I started liking her.”

“The pool party.”  Archie said deviously and Finn pegged a beer mat hard at him.

“You said you wouldn’t mention that!”  Finn blushed furiously and grabbed another beer mat to throw at Archie.   Rae took it from his hands and looked at him sternly.

“The pool party?”  She asked Finn who shook his head at Archie, Rae turned to look at Archie.

“Don’t!”  Finn said as he brought his feet up onto his chair, ready to spring up over the table at Archie, to stop him before he spoke. 

“Caught him perving at your tits Rae!”  Archie said and backed away from the table before Finn could get to him.

Rae opened her mouth shocked.

“You what?”  Rae demanded while the rest of the gang laughed. 

“Not another word Archie!”  Finn punched Archie hard on the arm.

“Archie?”  Rae asked. 

“I can’t, he’s my best mate, plus he’ll hit me really hard.” 

“Fucking right I will!”  Finn said seriously, even though he was smiling.  When Archie and Finn sat back down, Rae still looking from one to the other waiting for one of them to say something, but both refused, so Danny spoke up;

“I’d like to know when you realised that you liked Rae.”

“I probably liked her for a long time before I did realise.”  Finn replied still giving dirty looks to Archie who was rubbing his arm.  Archie saw Finn glaring at him, smiled sweetly and gave him the finger. 

“And when was that?”  Danny asked innocently. 

“During spin the bottle.”  Finn answered, turning his face to Danny. 

“Hey, that’s when I realised I loved Izzy.”  Izzy grinned at Chop and moved closer to him, “it’s the game of love, I tell you!”

Finn looked shyly at Rae and then back to Chop.

“It’s pretty funny.”  He said looking at his hands with a grin, “when the bottle landed on you Rae,” He looked up at her, “I felt like I might punch the fuck out of every guy playing, cos he might get to kiss you.  So I knew.”  He ended with a self-conscious shrug.

“What?  Even me?”  Chop asked feigning hurt feelings.

“Aye chop, I woulda punched you the hardest!”  Finn leaned over and hit his thigh and Chop corked Finn’s arm in return. 

“What?” Rae was shaking her head confused, “if you liked me, then what the fuck happened in the closet?”  Rae was laughing with the rest of the gang, but inside she felt a very dire need to know all of this. 

“Yes, what did happen in the closet?”  Chop leaned forward with Izzy on his lap mirroring his expression.

“He had a bit of a go at me!”  Rae answered them and turned her eyes back to Finn for an explanation.

“Eh,” he shrugged, “you were being a knob head to me all day, if you hadn’t have been I probably would have had your pants off instead of getting pissy at you.”

“That were my idea.”  Danny said, “although, in retrospection, probably not my best one.”

“You told her to be a knob to me?”  Finn asked with an incredulous grin.

“Well, Rae was in the friend zone, and I told her to create tension to be in the romance zone.”  Danny answered, absurdly pleased with his logic.

“Don’t take advice about our relationship from Danny again ok?”  Finn was laughing as he turned to Rae.

“Alright.” 

“So… nothing good happened in the closet then?”  Izzy asked.

“Not really.”  Rae said and took a big gulp of her beer.

“Nope, in fact, she told me she didn’t want to be me friend.”  Finn’s smile fell momentarily.  “Put me in a right bad mood.”  He said softly and took a swig of his pint.

“Yeah cos she wanted to be your girlfriend, dickhead!”  Chloe laughed, “how did you not see that?” 

“That’s not a very good use of a closet.”  Izzy shook her head in dismay. 

“Hey Chop, was it that kiss that made you know you loved Izzy?”  Rae changed the topic.

He nodded and turned to her, kissing her lips ferociously. 

“Get off!”  Izzy laughed.

“How’d you guys meet?”  Rae leaned forward as Izzy started to answer.

“Well Chop and me used to live next to each other.  But when I were thirteen we moved for me dad’s work.  I had such a crush on you,” Izzy turned to Chop, who grinned in reply, “and you never even noticed me!”  She laughed and Chop pursed his lips into a kiss at her.  “I was broken hearted when we moved!  When we moved back, I didn’t really know anyone anymore, I was pretty lonely.  But I saw Chop and Archie and Finn talking at the Chip shop one day so I went over and Chop let me hang around.”

“I nearly didn’t, kept thinking, not this bird again.”

“Oi!”  Izzy laughed.

“But Finn and Archie thought you were alright, so…”

“So I got to hang around with the boys for a bit.  But it were lonely being the only girl, so when I met Chloe at dance, I decided to introduce her to the gang.”  Izzy’s face lit up, “And then Chloe brought you along, Rae.  And then you brought Danny!”  Izzy finished with a grin. 

Danny gave a big grin and then saw the clock over the bar.

“Oh, and Danny’s got to go home.”  He quipped.  This was met with general dismay, and invitations to come out again.  But they all knew that Danny’s parents were keeping a tight reign over his socialising; they were afraid he’d get too much stimulation. 

They said their farewells to Danny, and Chloe dragged the girls to the bathroom to freshen up. 

“Rae your tits look amazing in that top.”  Izzy said as she came out of the stall and washed her hands.  Chloe paused for checking her makeup to look

“They’d look better if the top were lower cut.”  She opined. 

“It’s actually the lowest cut top I’ve got.” Rae looked at herself self-consciously.

“That’s a crime when you’ve got tits like that.”  Chloe said seriously.  Izzy nodded in agreement.  “Come here.”  Chloe said as she pulled at Rae’s shirt, “if we pull it down a little, we’ll show a little more skin.”

“I don’t really care!”  Rae protested as Izzy joined in. 

“Then it won’t hurt you to let us do it!”  Chloe answered triumphantly, “There, it’s done.”  Rae looked at her cleavage, now spilling out of her top and started to pull the top back up but Chloe slapped her hands away.  Rae gave her a frustrated glare, but Izzy backed Chloe silently as she started to pull Rae’s shirt in at the waist a little.

“Do you know,” Izzy sounded excited, “I’ve got to make a dress in me sewing class at school, can I make it for you Rae?”

“That’s such a great idea!”  Chloe agreed.

_Oh fuck.  I don’t really want them to be taking my measurements and seeing me in my underwear._

“I don’t know.” 

“Oh come on Rae, I’m the only one without a model!”  Izzy face was alight with hope and excitement.

“Use Chloe.”

“Can’t, she’s in the class, and we can’t use people in the class.”

“Who are you using Chloe?”  Rae deflected.

“I’m doing a suit for me dad.  It were mum’s idea.” 

“Well can’t you use your parents Izzy?”  She asked hopefully.

“Oh Rae, I’d much rather do something nice for you!”  Izzy pleaded.

“Oh.  Ok then.”  Rae gave in.  Izzy squealed with delight and Chloe looked really pleased.

_ffffuuuuuuuuuuucccckkkkkkk._

 

_ ‘More Human Than Human’ by White Zombie _

Getting back across the crowded pub to the boys was proving to be difficult.  There was a bit of shoving and weaving and getting drinks spilled on you and-

_Is that a hand on my arse?_

Rae was suddenly pulled backwards by a guy in the crowd.

“Hey big girl, you want a piece of this?”  He grabbed his cock through his pants and laughed. 

“Fuck off.”  Rae tried to pull away but he grabbed her arm. 

“Come on bitch, fat girl like you must be gagging for it.”  He said trying to get her hand to touch his groin.

“Get the fuck off!”  Izzy yelled at him, “CHOP! FINN!”  She called across the room.  Chloe watched on in horror as the guy pushed Izzy and laughed as she fell into a guy standing behind her. 

“The fuck are you doing?”  Finn’s face was a mask of fury as he took in the scene; Rae desperately pulling away from a drunk guy who was grabbing her, Izzy sprawled on the floor, Chloe backing away in fear.  Chop went straight to Izzy and Archie put a hand on Chloe’s shoulder. 

“Trying to get a hand job from this fat cunt.”

“The fuck you saying about my girl?”

_No.  No this can’t be happening._

“Your girl?”  He laughed, and his mates joined in, but he let go of Rae’s hand.

_No.  No please don’t let this be happening._

“Are you a chubby chaser?  I heard fat girls are best at sucking dick.” 

_Rae felt the room spiralling around her._

_Please just let this end now._

_If he hears how other people think about me… he’ll see it.  He’ll realise what he’s going out with._

Chop and Archie crept closer to Finn, Archie put a hand on Finn’s arm.  This dickhead had a big group of mates with him, there was no way they could take them all on. 

“I mean why else would you be with a fat, ugly cunt like that?”  Finn lurched forward, rage etched into every line of his face, but Archie and Chop grabbed his arms.  The guy walked right up to him laughing.  He opened his mouth to speak but Finn head butted him.  Hard.  Rae’s jaw dropped as the man fell to the ground, blood spurting from his nose. 

“Oh fuck.”  She heard Chop say as he raised his fists to take on the guy’s mates who had all turned to see what was happening.

“You broke my fucking nose!”  He yelled from the floor, and spat out blood and two teeth.

Finn kicked him in the gut, hard.

“I’ll break your fucking skull, if you touch her” a kick to the kidneys.

“Or look at her,” a kick to his side as he arched away in pain.

“Or speak about her again!”  A kick to the thigh as he tried to scoot away.

“You hear me?”  Finn tried to raise his fists, but Archie caught hold of him again, so he kicked the man in the thigh again.

“I’ll cave your fucking skull in!”  Archie tried to pull Finn back. 

And Chop tried to position himself between the girls and the guy’s mates.  But his mates just laughed.

“Serves him fucking right.  He’s a right twat.”  One of them said as Archie managed to pull Finn off him. 

“Let’s get the fuck out, before the fuzz come.”  Chop said as he dragged Finn by the collar, “Archie!”  He yelled at him, and Archie, knowing what Chop wanted, pushed the girls out in front of him. 

“The fuck you thinking?”  Chop said as he pulled Finn out, “you weigh your fucking odds Finn!” 

Archie grabbed Rae’s arm as she turned to see the guy that had grabbed her rolling around in a pool of his own blood.

_Fucking hell._

She turned and looked at Finn, who was letting himself be dragged away.  Izzy was fine but was dragging a crying Chloe behind her. 

Several blocks away they all stopped and sat in a public park.  Chloe had stopped crying.

“It were a just a shock, that’s all.”  She was saying to Izzy when they sat down.

Chop took Izzy protectively into his arms and kissed her forehead.

“You alright?”  She nodded and Chop held her tighter.  Archie took a cigarette from Chop and handed it to Chloe.  Finn paced angrily. 

“You ok?”  Rae asked softly. 

“I’m fine.”  And then he sat down slowly and cradled his head, “actually me head hurts.”  He used his t-shirt to wipe blood off his face, none of it his own.  Rae sat next to him on the floor and cautiously put a hand on his back. 

_Would he still want me after this?_

_After the reality of what I am had been shoved in his face?_

“Why’d you do that?”

Finn looked up confused at her.

“Why wouldn’t I?  You’re me girl, and he were talking shit about you, and fucking touched you without you saying it were ok.”  He was getting angry again.

“I’m sorry Finn.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“For that guy.”

“It’s not your fault - it were that guy.  It’s this fucking world innit?”

“I dunno.”

“It’s fucking bollocks how guys treat girls like they’re nought but a body.”

Rae noticed her shirt, pulled down by Chloe and Izzy, her breasts heaving over the top of it.  She self-consciously pulled the top up and looked away from him.

“Well you can’t fix it all by head butting it.”

“I can fucking try.”  He said and then grinned at her.  His hand touched her face, “are you alright Rae?”

“I’m fine.”

“Show me your arm.”  Rae held out her arm for him and he pulled his bottom lip into his mouth as he looked at the bruise forming.

“I didn’t kick him nearly hard enough.”  Finn’s voice was thick and raw.  He lowered his lips to the bruise and kissed her. 

“I’m sorry Rae.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“For not asking if you’re alright sooner.  For not beating the snot outta that guy harder.  For losing me temper.  I hope I didn’t scare you.”

“Well, it was a bit of a shock.” 

Finn lowered his eyes and bit the inside of his mouth.

“But I’m fine, and I’m not scared of you.”

“You’re sure you’re fine?”

“Yeah.”

“That guy will be pissing blood for a week.”  Archie said in trepidation.  “Good job Finn.”

“Did you see his fucking teeth!”  Chop laughed, “this lad knows how to brawl!”  He shoved Finn in congratulations and lit a cigarette for him.

They sat together for a few moments, talking about the fight, congratulating Finn, and worrying if anyone had called the cops.

“We should all go home.”  Chop said getting up.  “And we were all home, in our fucking rooms, all night, ok?”

“I’ll walk you home.”  Finn said as he got up and offered her a hand.

“Do you want to sneak in and stay the night?”

“Nah, Chop’s right, I should go home.  And I got work early tomorrow so I could get off on time to be at your birthday lunch.” 

They walked home in silence, holding hands.

_There were so many things I wanted to say to him._

_Sorry for being fat._

_Sorry for making you have to defend me._

_Sorry for not being able to take care of myself._

_But I couldn’t find the words for any of it._

_When he left me on my doorstep he kissed my forehead and left._

_It were the first night he hadn’t kissed me goodnight on the lips._

 

 

_ ‘To Bring You My Love’ by PJ Harvey _

“You’re home early.”  Linda said as Rae walked into the kitchen.

“Yeah the pub were too crowded.”

“Your Finn is quite the gentleman.”  Linda nodded to a dozen long-stem blood-red roses on the table, her mum had already put them in a vase.  Rae went over to them, a huge smile creeping across her face.

“They probably weren’t supposed to come till tomorrow, for your birthday.”  Linda smiled and handed her the card.  There was nothing but her name and a hand drawn heart on it.

_I love Finn.  He’s so perfect.  Every time I think something’s wrong or I feel like shit, he does something to make it better._

“I’m gonna take these up to my room.” 

“Be quiet though, the baby’s asleep.”  Rae kissed her mum goodnight and headed up the stairs with the roses in their vase. 

_They smell divine.  Would have cost heaps too.  What a lovely birthday present!_

She opened the door and saw the light on in the ensuite.  Finn was in there, topless.  He turned around. 

“Sorry.”  His eyes strayed to the roses.  “They’re nice.”

“Yeah, they really are.”  Rae said meaningfully. 

“Sorry, I crept into your room, but I couldn’t stand ending the night without a kiss, but I couldn’t kiss you with that creep’s blood on me, so…”  She looked at the basin full of soapy water and his shirt in his hand, which he was using to clean his face. 

Rae carefully put the roses down, and then flung her arms around him, kissing him hard and passionately.  He kissed back with the same ferocity, his arms surrounding her, he dropped his shirt onto the floor as she dragged him towards the bed. 

“Rae, I can’t.  I gotta get sleep before work.”  But his hands were undressing her even as he spoke, “No, I gotta stop.”  He said as he took her shirt off.  After a few more moments of kissing her he actually did pull away. 

“No I got a very important day tomorrow, and I don’t wanna fuck it up.  So I’m gonna go home and actually sleep.”  He kissed her again and then looked her in the eyes, “Happy birthday Rae.”  He grabbed his shirt, turned and dropped out of her window with graceful ease.  Rae looked at her clock.

12:01

_I’m 17._

_I have a lovely family, wonderful friends and a perfect boyfriend.  Everything was finally starting to look up._

_I’m happy.  I’m actually happy._

_And my birthday was gonna be great!_

 

_****_

 

Finn dropped to the ground outside of Rae’s window.

_Ow fuck me knee._

He landed awkwardly, but didn’t do any damage. 

Finn straightened up and turned to see Rae looking out her window.  He blew her a kiss and left. 

_Why didn’t I think to get her roses?_

_She really liked them._

_I wonder who they’re from._

 

 

_ ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ by Radiohead _

Finn walked angrily, fast, images of the night crowding his head. 

A few blocks on he noticed a familiar motorbike outside a lit up house and decided to knock on her door.

Elsa answered wearing a fitted, corseted dress. 

“Finn Nelson, what the hell are you doing on my doorstep?”

“I saw the bike.  Can I come in for a minute?”

“Unless you plan to become part of the sexual scenario I am currently in the middle of the answer is no.  And since you are only 17, and also soon to be a student of mine, the answer is doubly, and triply no.  So no.  No.  No.  Finn you cannot come in.”

“I just wanted to ask some advice.”  She looked at his downcast eyes and sighed.

“Just a minute guys.”  She called back into the house and closing the door she stepped out into the front patch of grass.

“Ok.  But I warn you that I am slightly… drunk… let’s say drunk.” 

Finn couldn’t help but smile at that.  And then he noticed what she was wearing.

“You look good.”  He said sounding surprised.

“Yes, even us oldies don’t scrub up too bad when hosting an orgy.  Now are you going to get to the point?”

“Orgy?”

“I might be exaggerating.”  Finn looked at the window and saw the shadows of several people moving.

“Right.”  He lowered his head and started to laugh.

“Not what you expected, am I?”

“No.”

“Good.”  He laughed and she stumbled slightly as she walked to her brick garden wall and sat on it.  He sat beside her and offered her one of his cigarettes. 

“Thanks.  So why are you here again?”  She asked as she took it. 

“So you’ve got a lad then?”

“You mean a lover?”

“Aye.”

“I have several, I’m polyamorous.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“We really do need to work on your English when you get back to school.  You came to my house to ask about my lovers?”  She shook her head at him and blew out her smoke towards his face. 

“Do you have lads that are like me?  Like young and… you know…”

“Are you asking if I have a young fit lover?”

“Yeah.”

“As in not fat.”  She said with an impenetrable smile. 

“No, I wasn’t meaning…”  Finn lowered his face and shifted uncomfortably. 

“It’s ok Finn.  The word fat doesn’t bother me.  And I have many younger lovers.  Youngest is 18.”

“Bet you teach him a thing or two.”  Finn smiled.

“That I do.”  She answered with a sinuous smirk. 

Finn found himself liking Elsa.  It was really easy to talk to her.  She was real and honest. 

“Can I talk to him?”  Finn asked after a short hesitation.

“No, he’s currently gagged.”  She drew heavily on her cigarette and flicked the butt across the road. 

Finn blinked a few times and looked everywhere but at Elsa who started to laugh.

“Ok.  I’ll take pity on you.”  She laid a hand on his arm and looked him in the eye, “You came over here, to talk to me, to see if I had a young, thin, male lover.  So that you could talk to him?  Now it might surprise you to know…”  She took her hand of his arm and produced some cigarettes from between her breasts and lit one.  “That not only am I off my face, but I actually know what you want.  Someone called you a member of the cellulite brigade?”

Finn looked blankly at her.

“A feeder?”

“I don’t know what that-“

“A chubby chaser?”

“Yeah!”

“Ah, there we go.’  She raised her eyes to heaven, “Oh society, is there no one you can’t try to fuck up?  It happened tonight?”  She said nodding at his wet and bloody shirt.  He nodded and let his fingers fidget with each other self-consciously. 

“Why do I feel so shitty about it?”  He asked softly, feeling shame fill his body.  He bit the inside of his cheek and found that he couldn’t look at her. 

“Cos it fetishizes Rae.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s like a sexual stereotype, you know like,” she shook her head as she searched for some stereotypes, “like Asian girls are obedient or redheaded girls are feisty.”  She pulled a face of distaste at the whole idea and Finn found himself already knowing what she was about to say, “well fat girls are desperate, can suck cock real good, cos you know, we’re so good at putting things in our mouths, like food…. Get it… it’s so funny.”  She nodded sarcastically and Finn chuckled, “Fat girls are the ones you can treat mean cos they know they can’t get any better.  Fat girls are desperate for male attention, so it’s easier to get their pants off.”

“Rae’s pants weren’t easy to get off.”

They laughed together for a moment and she offered Finn the cigarette, he took it. 

“I have a feeling that you understand, on some level, that quite often women are treated like they are nothing but bodies.”  Finn nodded and she took a deep breath before she began to speak again, “girls are taught from a very young age that how we look is the most important thing about us, and the media and society tells us how our body is supposed to look, and it’s usually a very narrow definition of beauty.”  Her face betrayed her frustration and anger, “And if you don’t fit into that, it’s kinda hellish.”

“I’m starting to understand that.”

“But it’s not just girls who get these fucked up messages, boys get told what to find attractive, and if you deviate too far from that definition, people think you’re sick – you have a fetish.  You can’t just like Rae for who she is, including her body.  You must like her body only.  Cos she’s a girl and that’s all girls are.  So you must have a fetish for her kind of body.  It’s bullshit of course, but since when has something being bullshit stopped the majority of people from believing it?”

“I hate it.”

“Well then Finny you can join my destroy society group.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that.   She lit another cigarette.

“I’m supposed to be giving up.”  She looked at the cigarette, “they’re killing my singing voice.”  She smiled and looked with a kindly eye at Finn.  “You’ve asked me a couple of questions.  Can I ask you one, answer honestly?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you wish Rae were more like me?”

Finn blushed and looked away.

“I don’t mean looked like me, or was as much of a sexual pervert as me, but had my confidence, my self-esteem?”

“I like Rae the way she is.  But…”  

“But it kills you to see her hate herself?”  His upper body heaved as the emotion of that realisation hit him.

“Yeah.”  He whispered, “I guess I do want her to change.”  He felt ashamed of himself.

“You don’t want bad change Finn, don’t be so hard on yourself.”  She said as she put an arm around his shoulders.  “So this bastard who called you a chubby chaser…”

“I head butted him.”

She threw he head back and laughed.  Finn had to smile and he felt better after a while of watching her laugh. 

“Why?”  She asked eventually drawing heavily on the cigarette again.

“I dunno.”

“You just have to not care what people think about you.”

“I don’t care what people think about me.  I’m worried what it does to Rae.”

“Ah.  And there’s the problem isn’t it?”  She smiled enigmatically, “I’ll try to help Rae get a positive body image Finn, as I’m sure you will too.  But no matter how good it gets, there will still always be days, for the rest of her life, when she won’t want to look at herself in the mirror.  There’ll be days when some shit-stain will say something and it’ll knock her confidence.”  She looked him in the eye, “And it will never stop hurting you to see her like that.  Never.”

Finn lowered his eyes, knowing that she was right.

“And you will always have to fight to get her through those moments.  For the rest of your life… or at least for the rest of your time with her.”  She flicked the cigarette butt across the road and stood up.

“Finn… you need to have a really good think about whether you can handle that, as well as any other things she’s got going on, before you go any further in this relationship.”  She paused for emphasis and Finn felt his body get heavy with misery.  He nodded, knowing she was right. 

“Rae deserves to be happy, and if you let her fall in love with you, let her believe that she can rely on you, let her learn to trust you, knowing that you can’t handle all of this… you’re not doing her any favours.”  She looked sad and shook her head. 

“It won’t help her to have you and then watch you leave her because you can’t handle her world.”  She stood closer to him as he sat on her garden wall.

“Finn, look at me.”  He looked up, “if you can’t handle her world, you should leave her now, not later.  Before she feels too much for you.  That would be the kindest thing to do.  Understand?  And then she can find someone that can handle her world.  You need to think on that.  Be sure either way.  Ok?”

Silence.

“Yeah.”


	2. Chapter 2 - Worlds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the second part of an 8 part season 3 fanfic.
> 
> If you can, read with the suggested music.
> 
> cheers m'dears

 

_ ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ by Oasis _

_Do you ever wish you could go back in time?_

_If you knew the moments where you’d made a mistake, where things had gone wrong, where you’d missed opportunities, would you go back and fix it?_

Rae dropped the phone while Finn was still speaking.  She saw it, as if in slow motion hit the table and bounce off to the floor. 

Shock and disbelief swept through her body. 

_This can’t be happening._

_Not now._

She could hear Finn still speaking on the phone from the floor, his tone urgent.

_I couldn’t hear what he was saying._

_I heard those words and I couldn’t hear anything else._

_Not yet._

_The emotion was too raw._

_It all hurt too much._

_It were the worst day of me life._

_Nothing would ever make me feel alright again._

Rae walked away from the phone and sat at the kitchen table.  Karim picked the phone up off the floor and hung it up before sitting with her. 

_The phone rang again and I knew it were Finn._

_But what could we possibly say to each other now?_

_There were no words._

_There was only an angry silence._

The radio blared a tune, her mum bustled in the kitchen, but inside she was breaking apart. 

“What are you crying for?”  Linda asked as she served breakfast and tutted at Rae as tears leaked from her eyes.

_I don’t know why I expected any sort of sympathy from me mum._

_Me mum didn’t understand.  She couldn’t.  No one could._

_How could anyone understand how this feels?_

_Only someone who has lost what I have lost could fathom this endless well of pain._

“It’s you’re birthday Rae!”  Linda tried again, “Oh honestly, it’s not the end of the world Rae!”

_Not the end of the world?_

_She’s never felt like I do – she can’t understand the suffering, the pain of what I’d just heard._

_I couldn’t stop me feelings, even if it would ruin her plans for me birthday._

“Look, I know that break ups are hard…”  Linda tried to say, “but-“

Rae’s eyes strayed to the radio.  Her body slumped in misery as she listened to the tune finish, and then the music news report picked up where it had left off. 

“And the news has been confirmed; Britain’s number one Britpop band, Oasis, have broken up.”

She looked down and gave a melodramatic sob. 

“Pick up the damn phone Rae!”  Linda called as the phone started ringing for the second time and she went to get Aiesha, who had started to cry lustily.

Rae went into the lounge room and picked up the phone, putting it to her ear despondently. 

“Rae?  Are you alright?”  He sounded worried. 

“Yeah.”

Finn listened to her crying and turned to look at the other lads on the work yard.  He moved in closer to the phone so they couldn’t hear him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oasis broke up!”  She cried.

“Oh… oh right.”  He answered bewildered.  He’d tried to ring her this morning to wish her happy birthday again, but there’d been a loud bang and then she’d suddenly hung up on him and not picked the phone back up when he’d tried calling again.  “That’s pretty shite.”  He added feeling relieved and confused.

“Pretty shite?”  She almost shrieked.  Finn covered the ear piece and looked around stealthily again, some of the lads were looking over with grins.  “Now I’ll never see them live!”  She cried.

“Look, they’re in the middle of recording an album Rae, Noel and Liam always fight.  They’ll be back together before you know it.”  He soothed. 

“The radio says-“

“The radio’s wrong.  It’ll be ok.  Alright?” 

“Alright.”  She still sounded miserable.

“You gonna try be happy till I get there?”  Finn noticed a couple of the lads leaning forward to hear and tried to get even closer to the phone.

“Alright.”

“I’ll see you at lunch Miss Earl.”  Finn promised.

“I miss you.”  He grinned at her sulky tone.

“I miss you too.”  He replied and instantly heard the lads behind him snickering; they were gonna give him hell.  “Happy birthday Rae.”

“Thanks.”  She answered less miserably.

They hung up a few minutes later, Rae feeling considerably happier. 

_Lovely Finn.  He always knows what to say._

When Rae returned to the table, Karim was rocking Aiesha and Linda was holding a dress with a big expectant grin on her face.

_It were the most beautiful dress I’d ever seen._

_I didn’t think that someone like me should wear it._

“You like it?”  Linda fussed.

_I loved it!_

“Mum how can we afford that?”

“Oh don’t worry about that, it’s for your birthday!”  She was pleased.

Rae gave her mum a hug and then looked at the dress.

“It’s so pretty.”  Rae said wiping the remnants of tears from her face and touching the fabric.

“Try it on then.”

“Wear for lunch?”  Karim asked with a big smile.

_Wear for lunch?_

_You bet I was wearing this to lunch._

“Thank you!”  She hugged Karim and her mum again before taking the dress up to her room to try it on. 

It was red.

Like the red in the roses sitting on her bedside table. 

It had cap sleeves and a sweetheart neckline.  It was cinched under the bust with a black belt, before it flared out into metres and metres of fabric that fell beautifully to her knees.   When Rae twirled, the skirt spun up like she was from the 50s.  She laughed, loving the dress, and looked at herself in the mirror.

_Bloody hell, look at me tits!_

Rae pulled a terrified grimace at her cleavage. 

“Well this is too low.”  She fretted as she tried to stuff her boobs into the top self-consciously.

And then an image of Chloe and Izzy trying to get her top lower in the bathroom of the pub came to her.

_No.  Just stop Rae._

She stopped and looked at herself properly.

“It’s fine.  You’re fine.  You’re perfect.” 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Mysterious Ways’ by U2 _

 

Finn stood nervously at the door, a simple black box in his hands.  He had tied a ribbon around the box and he was looking at it now, feeling self-conscious.  He took it off and stuffed it in his pocket.  He bit his bottom lip and looked at how bare the box looked now, his eyebrows furrowed, worried. 

She opened the door and his mind literally stopped.

_What is he doing here?  He’s so early._

Linda and Karim had taken Aiesha to the doctor and would be back in half an hour, with just 10 minutes to spare before guests would start showing up. 

He took in her face, a small dusting of makeup, her hair gathered into a tussled ponytail, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from crawling down her body.  Her bare neck, the cleavage and the redness of the dress against her pale skin. 

_It were the first time I’d seen him really, really look at my body.  He was always careful to keep his eyes on my face when I were naked.  Sometimes it made me self-conscious that he didn’t look, and sometimes I were glad he didn’t._

_But I could tell that this time he couldn’t help himself._

_And I really liked it._

He swallowed hard and cleared his throat.

“I like your dress.”  He said with a husky voice. 

“It were a present from me mum.”  His eyes travelled slowly up her body back to her smiling face. 

“Can I come in?”

“I thought you were supposed to be at work?”  She asked with a suspicion growing.

“No, I organised for your mum and Karim to give us some time alone.”

“You what?”  Rae was scandalised.  So now her mum and her lover were organising shag times for her?

“So I could give you this in private.”  He said as he held up the box. 

“Oh.  Right.”  She answered, relieved, disappointed and excitedly expectant all at the same time. 

_A shag would have been nice._

_But I were a bit curious as to what were in that black box._

She moved out of his way so he could get in. 

They sat down on the lounge and Finn wiped his palms on his jeans before turning to her. 

“This is just the first of a couple of presents.”  He said nervously, “so if you don’t like it… it’s fine.” 

“I know I’ll love it Finn.”

He nodded anxiously and handed the box to her. 

He bit the inside of his mouth and watched her face closely as she looked down at the plain black box. 

He felt as if his heart stopped from fear and nervousness as she opened the box.

_It were beautiful._

_I could barely believe me own eyes._

Two slender, silver chains, woven around each other with a large black diamond pendant. 

Rae felt her jaw drop. 

She looked closer at the chain, each link of the two chains was carefully connected to a link in the other chain.  But they were so fine that together they were as thick as one normal chain. 

And the black diamond pendant was exquisitely designed, held to the necklaces by silver that swirled around the top half of the teardrop shaped diamond. 

She looked up at him with a stunned expression.

“Finn.”  She breathed before looking back down at it.

“It alright?”  He asked anxiously.

She nodded. 

“Can I put it on you?”  He asked sheepishly. 

Rae nodded again, unable to find her breath or voice. 

He smiled nervously and lifted the necklace from the box.

“So um… I had the chain made for you, when we first started going out.”  He looked up at her and then back down at the chain quickly, “There’s two chains, you know, one of them means you, and the other means me.”  He ended with a scared shrug.

Rae felt tears starting to form in her eyes as Finn undid the necklace and then reached out to her, placing it around her neck.  The tears started to drip down her cheeks when she felt the weight of the diamond sitting on the centre of her chest, sparkling above her cleavage.  And her hand shot up to touch it.

“The diamond…”  He hesitated afraid of what she might think, so he focused on the insignificant details, “Well the jeweller said it’s 7 karats, whatever that means, and pretty much perfect…” he lowered his eyes and bit his bottom lip, “like you.” 

“Finn…” she breathed.

“Um… it um… it belonged to me great Gran-ma.  She got it from her parents when she finished university.”  Finn touched it with his fingertips and then laid his hand flat on her chest, feeling her heartbeat.  “She gave it to me Nan on her 18th birthday.  I remember me Nan wearing it all the time.  It were her favourite necklace.  She said that since it were only boys she had she was waiting for a girl grandchild to give it to.  But there were none – all boys.”  Finn grinned as if apologetically, “So when she were in hospital, she gave it to me.  Told me to get it a new chain and give it to someone special.”  His eyes flicked up to her face.  Tears leaving mascara trails down her face. 

“It alright?”  He asked urgently, afraid, and searched her face for clues.

“It’s perfect.”  She could barely breathe already, but when the smile he gave her in return lit up Finn’s eyes, she was sure she’d pass out from oxygen deprivation. 

_And then he kissed me._

_Like I’d done him a favour for liking me present._

_He kissed me like it were his first kiss, urgent, hungry._

_I wanted to shag him right there on the lounge, but I knew me mum would be back soon._

“It’s so beautiful Finn.  I can’t believe it.”  Rae gushed when he stopped kissing her.  She jumped up and went to the bathroom to look in the mirror.  “I really can’t believe it.”  The words barely left her mouth as her eyes stared, transfixed on the stone.  He watched her reflection as she gently touched the necklace and shook her head in disbelief.  Her face alight, her eyes sparkling.

“This must have been so expensive.”

“I dunno.”  Finn answered with a shrug. 

“You got the chain done when we first started going out?”  She turned to him and he noticed the way her skirt flared out as she moved, revealing the bare skin of her thighs.

“Aye, for your birthday.  But… we broke up.”

“And you kept it?”  He nodded his head slowly.

“A bit pathetic hey?” 

“No.”  She put her arms around his neck, “This is the most beautiful thing on the whole planet Finn.” 

“So you like it, even though the diamond were me Nan’s?”  He sought her approval again.

“Yes Finn.  I love it.”  She kissed him forcefully and enjoyed the feel of his hands sneaking up her body, pulling her dress up as they went.  “I’ll never take it off.”  She whispered in between Finn’s increasingly urgent kisses.

“I gotta fix me face before people get here.”  He moaned, frustrated, in response as she turned back to the mirror.  He kept his hands on her body and kissed her neck, his hand sliding up to her breasts, as she started to fix her makeup.

She wiped the mascara tear tracks off her face and had started to reapply her eye makeup when he put his lips near her ear.

“Forgotten about Oasis?’  He teased.

“Who are they?”  She asked innocently as she turned to kiss him.  He lifted her gently and at her on the basin, Sliding one hand up her inner thighs while the other cupped her round arse.  His fingers slid over the silky material of her knickers.

“Hmmm.  These feel nice.”  He breathed as he bit her bottom lip gently.  He rubbed her through her underwear momentarily before slipping them aside and groaning appreciatively at how wet and warm she was.  He licked her lips softly, reminding her of what he promised to do

_The next time we’re alone Rae Earl, I’m going to lick your cunt for so long, you won’t be able to walk for an hour after_

She whimpered slightly as he slid his fingers over her clitoris and then inside of her.  She felt his hard cock through his jeans and unzipped his fly, slipping her hand into his boxers to grasp him.  He groaned as he kissed her mouth hard.

“Do we have time to fuck?”  He whispered in between kisses.

“I don’t think so.”

They were still kissing, Rae sitting on the basin, one of Finn’s hands up her skirt, fingering her around her silky underwear, when Linda walked in.

“Oi you two!”  She threw a bag of disposable nappies at Finn, hitting him on the back of the head, “guests’ll be here soon.”  She said as she went upstairs to Aisha’s room to put her in the crib.  Finn started to laugh as Rae moaned with frustration this time.

“How close were you?”  He whispered.

“Almost as close as the red cabbage time.”  They laughed and Finn picked up the nappies as they went out into the lounge room.  He put them on the lounge and followed Rae into the kitchen where she was starting to get the cutlery together. 

Linda walked in to see them flirting and laughing together as they set the table.  It was wonderful to see Rae so happy.  Her eyes dropped to the necklace and lingered on it for a few moments in disbelief before she spoke. 

“Bloody hell Finn.”  She breathed eventually.  They both looked up at Linda, “is that real?”  Linda exclaimed nodding towards the black diamond.  Rae’s hand crept up to clasp it and Finn looked over at it.

“I suppose it is?”  He asked innocently, “I don’t really know anything about it other than it were me Nan’s.  It’s worth a lot to me because of that.”  He lowered his eyes anxiously again. 

Linda glanced over to Karim and they shared a knowing look, as Rae, still holding the diamond, leaned in to kiss Finn.

“It’s worth a lot to me too.”  She said softly, so no one but Finn could hear her, “are you sure you want to give it to me?  It were your Nan’s.”

“Yeah.  I want you to have this Rae Earl.”  He gave her that unfathomable look of his and kissed her.

“Well, I’ll look after it.”  She kissed him again as someone knocked on the door. 

***

_I could barely take me eyes off her.  She were so beautiful.  But there’s no words I could ever say that would express what I felt, what I think, what I see when I look at her._

_Elsa’s words were still in the back of me mind, and I were thinking on it.  But how could I really think on it, when she were just so perfect?_

_I were chuffed that she liked me present._

_The way it made me feel to see it around her neck, well it put things into perspective._

_When I took it to the jeweller to get the new chain, he thought I’d stolen it.  He offered to buy it too._

_But there were no way this diamond were leaving my family._

“Oh my god Rae!”  Chloe gushed over how good Rae looked and Izzy joined in, and then their eyes fixated on the diamond. 

Chop, Archie, and Finn sat together as the girls banged on about Finn’s gift. 

“Probably should have given the other presents first.”  Archie said quietly.

“Then I wouldn’t’a had anything solid to give her today.”  Finn shrugged, “She’ll like the other presents too.”

“Yeah but after that thing around her neck, the other presents might seem underwhelming.”

“No.  Rae’s not like that.  She’ll love them.”  Finn assured them all, himself included.

“That reminds me,” Chop reached into his pocket and withdrew a set of keys.  “Everything’s organised.”

“Thanks Chop.”

They listened to Chloe saying that a diamond like that would be worth more than her car and Archie and Chop turned their eyes to Finn for confirmation or denial of Chloe’s claim.  When Finn said nothing Chop and Archie exchanged a glance. 

“How much is that diamond worth?”  Archie asked quietly.

“More than all her other presents.  But I’m not telling you two twats an actual amount, you’ll never keep your mouths shut.”  Finn answered softly.  “Besides, I don’t care if she thinks it’s worth ten quid or worth a million quid, as long as she knows it belonged to me Nan, and that’s why it matters.” 

_I love the way her hand kept going up to it._

_And how her eyes would seek me out when we were apart._

“That’s quite a gift.”  Archie said looking at Finn meaningfully. 

“Yeah!”  Chop agreed thinking about the money.  But Archie caught Finn’s eye and gave him a meaningful look. 

Finn nodded that he understood Archie’s meaning. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’ by The Go Go’s _

 

_Me birthday lunch were real nice, it were hard to stick to me diet when all the food was so brilliant._

_There were no presents, which was a little unexpected, but I had me dress from Mum, and me necklace from Finn, and the gang said they’d shout the drinks tonight, so that was actually pretty good._

_Everything was going so well that I started to get nervous and wonder when the shit would hit the fan._

_But everything went ok._

_Except for when me mum decided that she’d feed Aiesha at the table cos she didn’t want to miss me blowing out me candles._

_Half me bloody birthday photos will have me mum’s knockers hanging out in them!_

 

***

_Me insides were jittery at the pub.  The plan was going off without a hitch so far._

_Chloe had left on time – ‘to go home’ – and now I just had to wait for her to come back._

_I had to physically stop myself from looking at the clock over the bar every ten seconds._

_I tried to laugh at Chop’s jokes and to not fidget too much, I tried to not show that the time were getting on and how that bothered me._

_Come on Chloe…_

_Where are you?_

Finn tried to take his mind off the time by looking around the pub.  He noticed a few guys looking over at their table and put his arm jealously around Rae’s shoulders.  She leaned into him, still joking with Chop and let her hand fall onto his thigh.

His insides squirmed with anticipation.

_Tonight I’m gonna do something that I’ve never done before._

_I’ve read about it, seen it done of plenty of times in films._

_But never done it myself._

_I’ve wanted to do it, I suppose.  But not like how I want to do it now._

_I still had hours to wait though._

_Her hand on me thigh is doing me head in._

_You’re acting like a fucking virgin Finn!_

_Fuck.  Relax._

_What’s the fucking time?_

Finn licked his bottom lip and turned to look at Rae laughing at Archie.  One hand on his thigh, the other holding the diamond.  And then he saw Chloe by the door, smiling broadly, giving him the thumbs up. 

“Right,” he stood up.  “Time to go.”

“What?”  Rae asked looking disappointed.

“I’ve got somewhere to take you.”  He said as he took her hand.  Izzy jumped up and ran over to Chloe, Chop and Archie sauntered over and opened up the double doors wide so that the limousine waiting outside could be seen.  Rae turned and saw the gang assembled at the door, waiting for her, and then she saw the limo. 

“What the hell is this?”  She asked Finn.  He replied with a satisfied grin and motioned for her to come with him. 

“Were you all in on this?”  She asked the rest of them, stunned at their proud faces, “how’d you all plan it without me knowing?  And in so short a time?”

“Well Finn had already planned some of it before he,” Archie paused, realising what he was about to say, “you know… went to Leeds” Archie finished cautiously, “so it was just picking up the old plans.”  He shrugged.

She turned to see Finn’s satisfied grin take on a touch of smugness.

“I packed your stuff babe, and made sure your mum knew everything that was going on.”  Chloe said as she handed her a big backpack, “and mine and Izzy’s birthday pressies for you are in there too.” 

“I paid for the limo.”  Archie said as he opened the door for her.  “Happy birthday Rae.”

“And I got the accommodations.”  Chop grinned and kissed her on the cheek.  “Have a good weekend love.”

She got into the limo in a daze, Finn jumped in beside her.

“Thanks guys!”  She said as she leaned over Finn and looked out at the gang.  “Thank you!”

Finn slid his hand over her arse as she said her goodbyes and starting playing with the idea of putting his hand up her skirt and feeling her again through those silky underpants she had on.  He couldn’t wait to see them, they felt nice. 

The limo drove off and Finn checked the time with the driver.  They were still on time. 

_Everything was going exactly to plan._

_ ‘The Mercy Seat’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (digital re-master) _

_I can’t do it._

Rae looked at the airport looming up in front of her.

_I’ve been never been on a plane before.  But me mum said that her friend Mavis can’t fit in the plane seats._

_What if I can’t fit in the plane seats?_

_What if people look at me?_

_What if people laugh?_

Rae had an image of a gorgeous flight stewardess smiling with pity as she tried to help wedge Rae into the plane seat while two equally gorgeous stewardesses whispered and laughed behind her.

_Look at all the people._

_There’s so many people._

A statuesque, slender, blond woman walked past wearing a stewardess uniform.

_Oh my god…_

_They really are beautiful._

_And there’s so many people._

_And where are we going._

_Oh god Finn’s looking at me._

_And so the stewardess._

_And that guy over there._

_And…_

_And…_

_Oh no.  Not here._

Finn noticed her holding his hand tightly as the limo pulled away from them.  He saw her looking around, her eyes darting from place to the next, her breath coming in short sharp silent gasps. 

“Rae.”  He said softly, “Rae, look at me.  Don’t look out there, look at me.”  He reached down and put her other hand on his chest.

“I’m right here.”  He soothed. 

_Put your hands on something solid._

_Rae._

_Put your hands on something solid._

She put both of hands on his chest and looked at his calm face.  There was no impatience, no judgement, just calm reassurance. 

“You’re ok.  It’s fine.”  He continued calmly.  She tried to nod, tried to say that she was ok, tried to laugh but the feeling of panic rose, intensified the more she tried to comfort him, the more she tried to say she was ok.  She looked back towards the airport.  The stewardess was looking over concerned. 

_Oh god.  Don’t look at me._

“Rae.  Look at me.”  He said as he softly guided her face to be pointed at him.  He noticed that her panic seemed to lessen when her hands where on his chest and when she wasn’t looking at the other people. 

“We’re ok.  Everything’s fine.  Just keep looking at me.  Ok?”  She finally managed to nod, the panic closing her throat.  He smiled reassuringly.  “It’s not a problem, we got heaps of time.  We can take as long as you need ok?”  Finn pushed aside the fact that they were running a little late and stroked her hair gently.  “You’re doing great.”  He didn’t understand what was happening with her, but he knew that certain things he did were helping her deal with it.  Her fingers curled in on themselves as they rested on his chest.

“Let’s go.”  She said through gritted teeth.

“To the plane or home?”  He asked with as little emotion in his voice as he could manage.  He so wanted to go the plane, to have the weekend he’d planned.  But he resolved to show no disappointment if they had to leave and go home.

“Plane.”  He voice was strangled, and he realised what a struggle this was for her.

“We can go home if you need?”

“Nope.”  Tears were in her eyes and her breathing was so rapid he worried she’d pass out. 

“I’ll just get the bags ok?”  She nodded, and he bent down and grabbed both bags with one hand, and then took her hand with his other.  “You keep looking at me, and I’ll make sure you don’t bang into nothing right?”

She nodded shakily.

“I’m sorry.”  She gasped.

“Don’t be daft!”  He said with a grin, “it’s fine.  I’m here, you’re here, and we’re ok.”  Rae nodded and squeezed his hand hard. 

_I can’t believe I were having a panic attack in front of Finn._

_I can’t believe he were handling it so well._

_I have to keep it together, I can’t let it spiral out of control.  But I know thinking like that makes it worse._

She stopped him and put her hand back on his chest, keeping her eyes on his calm face. 

_I can feel his heart beat._

_Thud thud_

_Thud thud_

_Thud thud_

_Thud thud_

_It’s so soothing._

_I can feel me own heartbeat slowing down to match his._

_I could stay here in the rhythm of his heartbeat forever._

Finn watched her close her eyes and take some deep shaky breaths and his eyes fell to her hand lying over his heart. 

“Here,” Finn said with understanding as he took the hand she was squeezing his hand with and put it around his wrist, “you feel me pulse?  It’s good?”  She nodded.  “Keep looking at me, let’s try walking again yeah?”

_His pulse was soothing, but not as soothing as his heartbeat.  I had to take deep breaths and keep my eyes on him._

_He took a leisurely pace and kept slowly flicking his eyes between my face and the path ahead._

 

 

_Somehow he got me on the plane like this.  I don’t remember him talking to people about checked luggage or even getting onto the plane._

_I do remember his kind face._

_His patience with me._

_His heartbeat._

_I know I stopped him several times to put my hand on his chest, and not once did he show the slightest sign of anything being wrong with me._

_And even when we were the last people on the plane, he took it all and said nothing disparaging in return._

_I don’t even remember the plane taking off, I just remember him putting my hand on his chest, and stroking the hair from my sweaty forehead with so much tenderness._

_I remember him kissing my lips softly and speaking calmly as he did up my seatbelt for me._

_I remember his eyes and his heartbeat._

 

 

They were on the plane for some time before Rae started to settle down and started to wonder where they were going. 

It took a lot longer still before she was brave enough to speak to him. 

_I were so embarrassed._

_I must’ve looked a fool clinging on to him and staring at him as we walked._

But he was holding her hand firmly, his eyes scanning the in-flight safety information, obviously worrying if she was ok, but trying to not crowd her or stare at her.

“I’m sorry.”  She said finally. 

“I told you Rae, it’s fine.  I don’t mind that you’ve got stuff.”

“Yeah but you shouldn’t have to be dragged into it.”

“But I wantta be dragged into it.  You’re me girl Rae.  Wherever you are, I am.”  He kissed her forehead and ran his fingers down her face, her neck, and then along the chain to the diamond.  “It looks good on you.”  He murmured as he put his face to hers and kissed her gently. 

_We kissed until the air hostess came and offered us drinks._

_I don’t know how long that was, but I noticed the passenger behind us giving me a dirty look when I shifted to look around._

“Where you just kissing me so I wouldn’t ask you where we’re going?”  He grinned while still biting his bottom lip and nodded.  He leaned in to kiss her again.

“No Finn!  Where are we going?”  She batted his arm softly. 

“Um… somewhere with a beautiful mountain, a nice lake, some forests, and snow… and seclusion…” 

“It sounds perfect.”

“It’s called Sutherland.”

“Scotland?”

“Aye.  I think I’ll wander around in a kilt, and get me tackle out.”  He teased.  And she laughed.

“I’ve never been anywhere before.” 

_It were so exciting._

_I wonder what kind of place we’ll be staying in._

_Might even be camping._

“How’d you afford all of this Finn?”

“Well, I work.  And I’ve worked for a few months now.  And me dad still gives me an allowance… and I’ve never paid any bills… so I saved quite a bit.  And there’s no one better than you to spend it on.  I only had t’pay for the plane tickets.”  He shrugged, “the gang were right in on it.”

“But… it’s so much…”

“Nah… plus did you know Chop’s from a rich family?”

“No.  Really?” 

“Aye.  That’s why he got the most expensive bit.  And it didn’t even cost him nought.”

“You what?” 

“His family owns the house we’re gonna stay in.”

Rae laughed and looked out the window.

“Wow.  Look at it.”  Finn leaned over her and put his face next to hers so they could both see.  “It’s beautiful.”

_I were so glad I got through me panic attack._

_If it weren’t for Finn, I never would have seen the earth from so high up._

_Fields and houses and forests moved by beneath us_

_It were the best birthday ever, and it hadn’t even finished yet._

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ by Inxs _

 

_There were another limo waiting for us in Scotland._

_Oh Archie, this must have cost him a packet._

After a long drive, they pulled up at a large double storey stone house in the dwindling sunlight.  Rae looked around but couldn’t see another house as far as she could see. 

There was a light sprinkling of snow falling and the house was lit up and looked warm and inviting. 

_I looked over at Finn, snowflakes melting in his hair, cold fog escaping his mouth every time he breathed out, and I knew that I loved him._

_I’d said it before.  Not to him.  But to myself.  I’d written it down.  Thought I understood it._

_But no.  It was that moment, as his eyes appraised the house and then turned to me, unsure, hoping I’d like it._

_I was in love._

_I was in love with Finn Nelson._

_And I knew I always would be._

_I’d thought about being with him forever before.  But not like this._

_Now I saw a mortgage, I saw children, I saw all that grown up stuff.  And it didn’t scare me.  I wanted it with him.  And more._

He grabbed the bags, again in one hand, and reached his other one out to her.  She stepped up to him and kissed him.

_I didn’t know how to say what I felt._

_My words always failed me with Finn._

_But never more than right now._

_I wanted to kiss him in such a way as he’d just know how much I love him.  How much I were his.  How much I couldn’t be without him._

_I needed him more than I needed the air in my lungs, and I kissed him desperately wanting him to feel it from me._

“Alright girl?” His voice was husky again as she pulled away from him.

“Yeah.”  She took his hand and they walked up to the house. 

Finn took out the keys that Chop had given him and opened the doors. 

Chop had organised for some people from the village to come and set the place up for them. 

The entrance area was tiled and featured a sweeping set of grand stairs.  Finn opened a set of massive French doors to the right and they looked into a beautiful sitting room, with a roaring fire.  Rae turned and opened the French doors to the left to find a massive kitchen and eating space filled with helium balloons saying ‘happy birthday Rae’ and streamers. 

Finn licked his bottom lip and took her hand again, leading her up the stairs. 

At the top of the stairs wild flowers had been laid on the floor, creating a path to the master bedroom.

Finn kept watching her reactions from the corner of his eye as each step they took released the sweet perfume of the flowers.  He opened the doors to the master bedroom and Rae followed him in.

She turned to look at the dozens of vases filled with wild flowers in the room and turned back to him.

“You planned all of this?”

“Not the balloons; that were the girls.  But the flowers, aye.” 

“Ensuite’s not as good as yours.”  He said cheekily as he motioned for her to look.  It had a massive spa bath, Finn could have lied down flat in it, and a walk in shower.  Both the bedroom and the bathroom had a massive window looking out over a lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains, the sun setting behind them.  She could see the frozen lake shimmering in the light, the snow kissed trees moving gently in the breeze.  It was a breathtaking view. 

She turned back to Finn who was sitting on the king size bed and looking at a chocolate cupcake with a sparkler in it that had been left on the bed. 

He took out his Lighter and lit the sparkler. 

“Happy birthday to you.”  He sung softly, his eyes on hers, “happy birthday to you.”  She bit her bottom lip and shook her head in amazement, smiling, “Happy birthday Miss Earl.  Happy birthday to you.” 

He stood and brought the cupcake to her, but she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him. 

“This is brilliant!” 

“We’ve got the place to ourselves until Monday.”

She turned to look at the view again, her dress swishing about her knees intoxicatingly, he felt his body respond to the way her body moved as she looked around happily.

“It’s perfect Finn.  Thank you!”

“Apparently they’ve got a heated pool outside too.”  He tried to sound casual. 

“Not in this bloody weather.”

“I think it’s covered.” 

Finn seemed nervous, he wiped his palms on his jeans and bit his lip.

“We might have to visit it then.”  Rae changed her tune.  Finn grinned and turned to make sure the fire in their room was good.

“Let me cook some dinner for you.”  He offered then took her hand and led her down to the kitchen. 

Rae sat at the kitchen table and watched Finn cutting up vegetables and frying meat. 

“Your dad really did make you cook a lot!”  Rae said impressed.

“He was at work a bit, yeah.”  Finn shrugged. 

“I can’t believe everything you’ve done for me today Finn.  I don’t deserve it.”

“Yes you do.”  He said with a solemn face.

_I didn’t argue with him._

_Not because I thought it would ruin the mood._

_Not because I thought he wouldn’t understand._

_But because I wanted to believe him._

“Thank you.”  Rae looked down at her diamond grinning.  Finn turned around to see her and felt his nervousness rise and his mood elate. 

He put the food down in front of her and poured them both a drink. 

“So here’s how this weekend is going to go Miss Earl.”  He said quietly, he’d been practicing in his head what he would say.  “You are going to do nothing, and I am going to do everything.”

“You’re gonna cook all my food?”  She asked cheekily.

“Yep.”  He said grinning.  “Also,” he paused, his heart hammering in his chest, “I’ll do whatever you say.”  He saw the smile on her face and knew her mind hadn’t gone where he intended.  “I mean…” He wiped his palms on his jeans again, “This weekend is all about your pleasure.”  Rae’s eyebrows raised, “not mine.”  He added and bit his bottom lip.  Rae stopped eating and looked at his mouth as his lip slowly slid out from under his teeth.  He licked his lips and then looked down at his plate with a sly grin. 

_I felt me lady bits tingling._

_Was he implying, what I thought he were implying?_

Finn bit the inside of his cheek for a moment and steadied his nerves.

“And um… I haven’t done it before… so… I might need a lot of practice.” 

“A lot?”  Rae felt her innards tremble.  And he looked up from his food with a sinuous smirk.

“Well I did say that the next time we was alone I’d lick your cunt for so long you wouldn’t be able to walk for an hour after.”  He paused and let his eyes travel down her body, then back up to her face, “I meant it.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Closer’ by Nine Inch nails _

 

Finn bit his bottom lip and watched her dance to the loud music.  They were both a little drunk, and the music he’d chosen was kinda dirty.  Deliberately so.  He watched the way her body moved under that red dress, feeling the room move with her as the alcohol messed with his senses. 

She drank vodka from the bottle, and her hair was loose, swaying around her head as she danced, rocking her head from side to side, the alcohol making her body loose and her head giddy. 

He went to her, moved his body in time with hers, reached his hand back and slowly unzipped the dress.  Once the zip was undone she looked him in the eye and danced backwards from him.  When she knew he could see her properly she let the dress fall to the floor, she swayed her hips and raised her hands above her head and danced with no self-consciousness, her whole body fluid and rhythmic, grinding with the music.  Finn saw the see-through underpants, green, and the matching bra and groaned with desire.  He took her firmly into his arms and kissed her lips roughly, she returned it, their kissing messy and ferocious, their bodies grinding into each other to the rhythm of the bass.  Finn kissed her neck with wet open mouthed kissed, licking the salt from her skin.  He slid the straps of her bra down so he could kiss her shoulders and tried to get his drunk fingers to unhook the bra as he kissed her chest. 

The bra was thrown across the room and he tried to make love to her breasts with his mouth, his hands squeezing them tightly together while he buried his face in between their soft curves. 

Rae felt like every nerve in her body was alive, everywhere he touched her was shooting pleasure through her whole being.  Her head swam and her body wouldn’t stop moving to the music.  Finn fell to his knees before her dancing form and she looked down at him through her hair as it fluttered around her face.  She grabbed his hair and he rolled his head around as she moved it from side to side. 

“Are you gonna fuck me with your face?  Your beautiful face…”  She felt his hands reach up to her underpants and slip them down over her hips.  They fell around her ankles, while Finn kissed and licked her stomach, working down to her cunt. 

_My… cunt…_

Rae’s mind said the words over and over again as Finn rubbed his mouth into her vulva, while she stood there, head thrown back, hands in his hair, her hips grinding in time to the music, her underpants around her ankles. 

“Sit the fuck down.”  Finn said gruffly and she stumbled to the lounge.  She had barely sat down and he was there, spreading her legs with his strong hands, pushing her back so he could get at her cunt.  He licked her inner thighs, biting and kissing as he worked towards her vagina.  She thrust her hips towards his mouth.

He felt his nerves kicking in, even as the alcohol soothed them.  He wanted to do this right, he wanted to make her scream his fucking name.  He wanted to tease her until she was begging him to eat her. 

He could smell her and he felt his mouth water.

“Oh fuck.”  He groaned as her hips strained up pushing her cunt towards his mouth and he couldn’t wait anymore, he licked her vagina with his whole tongue, loving the way her legs shuddered when his tongue covered her clitoris.  He heard her groan loudly as he licked her whole vagina again, messily, getting her juices all over his face.  He pushed her legs further apart and pushed his face into her cunt further; licking, sucking, gently biting her clitoris and slowly building up a rhythm as her moans intensified.  He wanted to make love to her cunt with his mouth, no, he wanted to fuck her cunt with his mouth, he licked all of her vagina, enjoying the taste of her cum and the movements she made as she pulled his hair viciously.  He slid first one and then two fingers inside of her, and instead of his thumb on her clitoris it was his mouth, his tongue. 

She grabbed his hair harder and ground her cunt into his face, riding him and he licked faster as he heard her gasping loudly, saw her stomach tense up and then felt her legs shuddering. 

_His face on my… cunt… was the most sexy thing I will ever experience.  He ate me like a man who hadn’t had food in a decade.  When I came, I rode his face like a bucking horse._

_And I screamed._

Her gasps came out in ragged, loud moans drowning out the music. Her whole body shook as pleasure took her.  Finn licked more, wanting her to ride the orgasm for as long as possible. 

She lay there panting, and watching Finn lick his fingers, still fully dressed.

“Get your fucking clothes off.”  She slurred her order drunkenly.  He took his shirt off, ripping the seams as he did and frantically pulled his jeans down.  He slid into her wet snatch while he was still keeling on the floor.  She sat up on the lounge and moved closer to him.  He held her legs around his waist so he could drive into her deeper and harder.  He moved his legs up her thighs until he grabbed her arse and hammered his cock into her almost violently, never taking his eyes off hers as she gasped loudly.  When he came he let out a triumphant groan and collapsed, panting hard onto the floor. His pants still around his ankles.  Rae collapsed back onto the lounge, panting, her body tingling. 

“Holy… Fuck… Rae…” He gasped.  After a few moments he got up and snaked his way up her body till he was on top of her, he kissed her and stroked her hair. 

“Let’s shower, clean up, then I wanna do that again, but slower.  Is that alright with you?  Cos you know, I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Well Finn, you were right, you’ll need to practice… at least another dozen times.  If not more.”  She teased.

“Good.”  His smile was so sexy and Rae kissed him, feeling her insides wanting him again already.  “Let’s go.”  She murmured.  He felt his head swim as he tried to get up and sat back down hard on the lounge.

“Fuck I’m drunk!”  Rae laughed as she lay on the lounge and he laid his head on her stomach.  _I want you._   He traced on her thigh.  She laid her hands across his shoulders as he started to kiss her stomach and thighs slowly, passionately, urgently. 

“Let’s shower?”

Rae nodded and got up, following upstairs to the bedroom.

 

 

_Dear Diary_

_I didn’t sleep last night.  I haven’t slept yet.  And I’m fairly certain that after he cooks breakfast, Finn’s gonna go down again._

_It’s brilliant.  He’s eaten my cunt so much over the last 10 hours that he could probably paint it from memory.  His jaw must be fucking broken.  Poor lad._

_I’ll only make him go down a few times today…_

_Before I knew Finn, I wouldn’t even write the word ‘cunt’ in my diary; I never said.  It were too dirty._

_But last night I screamed for him to eat my cunt so loudly that if we’d been in Stamford, everyone in the entirety of Lincolnshire would have heard it._

_He knows how dirty it is too.  He only ever says it when he wants to have dirty sex – when he wants to fuck.  When we’re making love, he’s all sweetness and innocence, and you’d never believe he even knew the word._

_It’s so weird what people are like when you’re alone with them.  I bet none of the gang would ever believe the way Finn can fuck like a jackhammer._

_I bet none of them would have guessed I was a fucking screamer.  I knew I moaned loudly sometimes.  But last night I think I loosened the foundations of the house._

_The best bit was when we came upstairs, after we showered, he laid down on the bed and asked me to ride his face.  I put one knee on either side of his head and he held my arse and licked me out and I looked down at him, and I could see his diamond hanging round my neck and his eyes staring lustily at me while his tongue went to work.  Oh it were heaven Diary.  After I came he rolled me onto to my back and had at me again._

_Then we got in the spa bath, and he couldn’t stop touching me and kissing me.  He acts like I’m Cindy Crawford or something; the way he looks at me._

_If I think about it too hard, I keep thinking it mustn’t be real._

 

 

_ ‘Get Off’ by Prince _

 

“You started unpacking?”  Finn put the tray with breakfast down on the bed and nodded at Rae’s diary.

“Yeah.”

“What’d the girls get you for your birthday?”

“I dunno.”

_I watched her scramble up and go to her bag._

_God… look at that arse._

_I just wantta sink me teeth into her arse._

_Don’t stare Finn, it’s creepy._

Finn sighed to himself lustily and looked back at the food. 

“Bacon’s waiting.”  He said as he sprawled across the bed and grabbed some with his fingers. 

Rae held up the underwear.

“Holy fuck.”

“What is it?”

“They got me a set of black lingerie.”

Finn sat up instantly.

“Oh yeah, like the green set?”

“Did you like ‘em... did you like me in ‘em?”

_Did I like her in ‘em?_

_What is this girl doing to me?_

_I wanna fuck like a rabbit whenever she’s around and she still asks me if I like her._

_I wonder if she realises that I can barely talk, me jaw’s that sore, but if I don’t go down on her again soon, I might die._

_Say something Finn_

“Yeah.”

_But then I remembered that she don’t like being seen naked and how she hates her body, and I knew I had to stop lusting after her so much, had to stop focusing on her body; it makes her self-conscious._

“But you know, girls are more than their bodies, so…”

Finn shrugged and Rae scrunched her face up at him before turning back to her bag.

_That’ll help – she’ll see that I love her for more than just her body.  I do like the way the sun makes her skin look.  And I like the way her tits move when she does stuff, and the marks on her stomach… I’ll have to ask her what they are.  They don’t look like the marks on her thighs._

Finn’s eyes fell to the scars on her thighs and his silent lusting for Rae ceased.

_She hates herself so much._

_How can I ever make her see…?_

Suddenly Elsa’s words came back to him.  Could he really handle Rae’s world?  All the pain, all the intensity, the emotion. 

“Oh my bloody god!”  Rae said as she pulled out a small gift basket.  Finn looked up at her surprised face.

“What is it?” 

Rae looked aghast at Finn and then back at the basket.

“It’s a sex hamper!”  She pulled out the contents, “Condoms, lubrication, massage oil, bath oils,”

“We can use them in the spa.”

“A vibrator, excellent choice, batteries, bless Chloe and Izzy” She laughed, “and what the fuck is this?”  She held up a butt plug and Finn felt his face go red.

“Um… that’s… for… you know… anal sex…”  He stuttered.

“Anal se-” Rae dropped it and stared at it for a moment before looking up at Finn, her mouth open in shock.

“Is that something… boys like?”

“I suppose.”  Finn fidgeted and struggled to make eye contact, “I’ve never done it, so I can’t say…”

“Do you want to?”  Rae asked aghast.

“I dunno.  Maybe.  If you wanted.  But if you don’t that’s alright.”

Rae lowered her eyes to look at the butt plug.

“That thing is never going near my arse.  Look at the fucking size of it!”

Finn laughed embarrassedly.

“Fair enough.  I wouldn’t put it near mine either.”

“But… you’d wantta… you know…?”

“I don’t know.”  He shrugged, “I kinda wantta do everything with you.”  He bit the inside of his mouth and looked down at his hands. 

“Yeah, well… I’ll think about it… but I’m leaning towards no fucking way.  I’m sorry if that’s-”

“That’s fine.  I really don’t mind.”  He reached out and touched her face, “really.”  He assured her.  “I never really thought about it till Chloe and Izzy gave us that little gift.”  He pulled a ‘what-the-fuck’ and looked at the butt plug face and Rae started to laugh.

“I bet the butt plug were Chloe’s idea.”

“I dunno, Izzy’s clearly a deviant.”  Finn joked. 

 

 

***

 

 

Rae looked at the CD player with a bemused look.

“Prince?”  She asked.

“Aye, it’s dirty.  And I wanna be dirty with you.”  He motioned for her to get in and she sat on the edge of the pool. 

Snow fell on the glass ceiling of the pool house.  And Finn swam naked in the heated water. 

“Did you just pack a bag of dirty CDs?”

“No… but a lot of ‘em are pretty dirty.”  He smirked. 

“Are you trying to use music to seduce me Finnley?”

“Any means necessary Miss Earl.”  He swam up to her and started to kiss the inside of her thigh.  She slid into the warm water and felt his strong arms embrace her. 

“You give me your Nan’s necklace, bring me away for a dirty weekend… what are you gonna do when I turn 18?”  They moved together in the water and Finn screwed up his face in consideration. 

“Dunno.”  He answered truthfully, “but I’ll think of something.”

_I love that he thinks we might still be together in a year._

_It makes me insides squiggle._

_I love him so much._

_I love the way his hands move over me body._

_I love the way he looks at me._

_I love his smile._

_I love those looks he gets in his eyes that I can’t understand._

_I love the way he strokes my face, and me hair._

_I love the things he does for me, and the way he talks to me._

_I love how kind he is, how good he is._

_I wish I could say it all._

_But whenever I got something important to say me mouth always stops, and me words dry up._

“What are you thinking Rae?”

“Nothing.  Except, it’s been way too long since you kissed me.”

That familiar grin, the one filled with love and intimacy spread across his face as he nodded his agreement and tilted his face to hers.  Their lips touched softly, his hand on the back of her neck, playing with the wet strands of hair, her hands on his back.  When their lips parted, their foreheads touching, both of them looking down at the other’s lips, Rae felt those words on her lips.  Felt herself wanting to say them. 

_I love you Finn._

“I want you inside me.  Now.” 

Finn nodded slowly, like he was in a daze, and ran his hands down her body, past her hips to her thighs.  He pulled her legs up to be around his waist.

_I love the way me body feels in the water, all light, like I could do anything._

_And I had to admit that Prince were a good choice for all the things I wanted to do to him._

_Especially when Finn looks at me like that, I know what that look means._

Rae reached down and guided Finn’s cock into her, Finn grinned lustily, surprised by her taking the lead.

She slid herself up and down his cock while he stood, holding her arse and watching her face, her tits, her body move as she rode him, her body pressed against his, the water lapping against them. 

She wrapped her arms around his neck and Finn buried his face in her tits, kissing, licking and biting her nipples until they were so hard they hurt. 

“Oh fuck.”  He groaned appreciatively as she raised her hands above her head and locked her eyes on his, biting her bottom lip, sex etched into her features, lusty moans emanating from her mouth every time he slid into her. 

_Look at his face._

_Look at his mouth._

Rae kissed his mouth passionately, almost vehemently and Finn groaned loudly in response. 

She turned her mouth to his neck and tasted the sweat of his skin and the salt of the pool mingled on his smooth flesh. 

“I want you to fuck me Finn, as hard as you can.”  She whispered in his ear.  He turned his face to look at her eyes, a sinuous look on his face.

“As you wish Miss Earl.”  He breathed as he fumbled, stumbled his way to shallower water and then slammed Rae into the pool wall.  She gasped loudly with excited shock. 

He lifted her out of the water a little, the muscles on his arms standing out in tight ropes and drove into her aggressively.  She leaned back over the top of the pool and raised her hips to him and he dug his fingers into her hips and thrust harder still, waiting for her breath to start gasping out of her in stunned groans of pleasure.  Finn watched the way her tits moved, the way her head was thrown back the way her throat worked as she moaned, the water dripping from her skin and came with a loud cry.  She slid back into the pool and kissed him while he still gasped for air.

“You’ll be the fucking death of me Rae.”  He laughed still panting.

“Sorry.”  Her face showed no signs of remorse.

“Good way to die.”  He took her into his arms and started to kiss her again.

“I like this pool.”  She wrapped her legs around him again, “we haveta fuck like this again before we go.”

“Oh, ok I guess.”  He feigned displeasure.

“I guess we don’t have to.”  She teased.

“No it’s alright.  We’ll do it.”  He pretended he was giving in to her, “I mean it your birthday weekend… I do have to do what you say.”  He shrugged as if he had no choice.

“That’s right.  You do.”  She ran her fingers along his mouth, “How long has it been since you went down.”

“Far too long.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Plump’ by Hole _

 

“Gonna eat your cupcake?”  Finn asked as he picked it up.  He’d lit the sparkler for her on Friday night, but they’d set about to drinking and he’d been so nervous and focussed on going down on her that he hadn’t thought to actually eat it until Sunday afternoon.  Rae’s eyes fell on the chocolate cupcake and she shook her head.

“Not hungry.” 

“Good, cos I want half of it.”  He joked and sat down on the lounge next to her. 

“You can just have all of it.”

_Why is she looking at the cupcake like that?_

_She looks like she wants it._

_Then why don’t she have it?_

A sudden image entered Finn’s mind and a pang in his stomach accompanied it; he remembered scraping half the dinner he’d cooked her into the bin on Friday night.  And she’d barely eaten any breakfast, and at lunch she’d only had half a sandwich… And then the same of Saturday… All her meals went half eaten. 

“Rae… are you eating enough?” 

_Oh shit Finn… you don’t just say stuff like that._

He watched as her normally open-as-a-book eyes slowly closed in front of him.

“Yeah I’m fine.”

_I know she’s lying to me._

_What do I do?_

“I just haven’t seen you eat much.”

“I’ve been eating heaps.”

“Really?”  He sounded sceptical.

“Remember at your place I asked for a second serving of potatoes?”

“Aye, but you only had one roast potato in the first place, and one in the second serving… both of ‘em together aren’t even one serving.”

“You’re a boy Finn – you eat a lot more than girls.”  She answered defensively. 

Doubt crept into Finn’s mind. 

“Are you sure you’re eating enough?”  He asked uncertainly.

“I am.”  She smiled reassuringly. 

He paused, biting the inside of his mouth and staring at her face hoping to see the truth in her eyes. 

_I don’t know what to believe.  Am I just imagining it?  Is she just eating normal for a girl?_

“Alright.”  He said hesitantly, “I trust you to do what’s right for you Rae.  Alright?”

“Ok!”  She said mocking him and leaning in for a kiss.  He kissed her, but a feeling of unease settled into his stomach. 

She turned away and started to flick through the CDs he had brought with them and he took the opportunity to massage his jaw while she was preoccupied.  The muscles in his jaw and tongue were threatening to freeze up they’d gotten so much use, but he was determined they’d be getting some more.  Especially with the way she screamed when he went down.  He let his eyes take in all of her for a moment as she scrunched her face up reading the track listing on a CD

_Every time I see that rainbow bathrobe all I can think about is the first time I were with her._

They’d just finished having a very sexy spa bath and her wet hair hung down the back of the robe.

_It were everything I wanted my first time to be.  I wish it had been my first time.  And I didn’t know if it were hers or not.  It don’t matter, it were our first time together.  And it were perfect.  Although I do wish I’d lasted longer than 7 minutes, but the way she felt underneath me, it were just too much for me to keep it in.  I’m getting better control of it now._

_I really like this bathrobe.  I like the way it looks on her._

He reached out and touched the material, and that seemed to rouse Rae from her thoughts. 

“Do you think you’ll go to university Finn?  Me mum wants to go, but I don’t know.”

_I love how she really wants to know what I think, the way she looks at me, like it really matters what I’m gonna say._

“You should go, you’re smart.”

“So are you.”

“I’m flunking English, and we live in England.”  He pulled a face to denote his own stupidity and how funny it was but Rae didn’t laugh. 

“You’re not stupid Finn.”  She said slightly angry. 

“I know, I’m just not as smart as you, is all.”  He shrugged. 

“That’s not true.”

“Your marks at school are higher than all of mine.”

“I can’t do music.”

“Aye but I hear you’ve got a lovely singing voice.”  He teased.

“Who told you?”  She flushed a lovely shade of red and Finn smirked proudly. 

“Izzy.  Says you chose to sing Sinead O’Connor... didn’t think she were your style.”

He watched her lower her eyes and her shoulders slumped slightly. 

“I’m sorry!”  He panicked, “I didn’t mean to upset you!”

“I were missing you.  So… Sinead.”  She shrugged, not looking up.  He felt his stomach drop a little.  So they were finally going to talk about all of that. 

“I’m sorry I went to Leeds.”  He began, readying himself for the long night of talking they had ahead of them. 

“It’s in the past.  I don’t wanna talk about all that.”  She kept her eyes lowered.

“Do you think we might need to?”

“No.  We’re past it Finn, aren’t we?”  She looked up at him resolutely. 

“Yeah.”  He answered uncertainly. 

They kissed, slowly at first, but inevitably the urgency increased and they ended up making love on the floor, Finn’s CDs surrounding them. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Deep Fried’ by Powder _

 

When Rae opened her eyes she saw Finn’s sleepy eyes watching her face, the smile on his face widened when he saw he eyes open. 

“Hi.”  He said softly.

“Hm.”  She sighed and stretched. 

He was lying on his stomach, his arms folded underneath his chest, his hands folded into his neck propping his chin up awkwardly.  She reached up and touched his scruffy hair.

“I’ll never get tired of your bed hair Finn.”  He kissed her in reply, pausing to look into her eyes.

“I love waking up next to you.”  He whispered his lips still on hers.  “It’s gonna be very hard, when we leave here, to say goodnight to you, and then have go home and sleep alone, instead of next to you.”  He kissed her urgently, but his urgency wasn’t sexual, it was a need to be close to her.  They made love clinging to each other, desperately needing to be closer, always closer, to one another, as if everything were about to end and they’d never be in each other’s arms again. 

 

 

Rae looked at her breakfast and sulked.  Finn smiled encouragingly.

“I hate that we have to leave today.”  She pouted miserably.  Another enigmatic smile from Finn. 

“I haven’t even put me black lingerie on.”  She sighed.  Finn looked up at the clock.

“We’ve got time for that.”  He grinned saucily and raised his eyebrows suggestively. 

“I haven’t even packed yet.  When’s the flight.”

“Don’t you worry about any of that – I’ve got it all sorted out.”

Rae opened her mouth to talk but the phone rang.  They both looked at the phone hanging on the kitchen wall as if it were alien technology.

“Oh god… do we answer it?” 

“Well everyone’s got this number as our contact number, so yes.”  Finn picked it up, and Rae listened closely.

“Hello?  Oh hi.”  His eyes went to Rae’s but gave nothing away about who was on the other end.  “Yeah.  Where?  Ok.  Yeah.”  Finn turned and looked at the clock.  “Ok.  How long will that take?”  He nodded and looked back at Rae smiling, “ok.  Thanks.  Yeah.  Bye.”  He turned and hung the phone up, biting his bottom lip and steadying himself before turning back to Rae; he hated lying to her, even if it was for a good reason. 

“That was just the airline, the flight’s been delayed.  Everything’s fine though.”

“So what time-”

“Don’t worry about it.  Have you finished your breakfast?”

“Yep.”  Finn screwed up his face at her barely touched plate and turned his eyes back to her, “Yes, Finn, I’m full!”

“Alright.  Well, I think it’s about time for some black lingerie yeah?” 

“Come up in about 10 minutes.”  She said before sauntering up the stairs.  Finn did a quick clean-up of the downstairs area before heading upstairs.  He checked the other rooms to make sure they were tidy and to use up his 10 minute allotment, before slowly opening the door to the master bedroom. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Enjoy’ - Bjork _

 

She was looking in the mirror when he opened the door, and she didn’t see him as his eyes caressed her from the doorway.

_Oh my god, it’s a fucking G-string, I can’t wear this in front of him.  And this bra is see through, and has less than no support._

_He has seen you naked Rae._

_Yeah but he never looks.  Even when he kisses me body, he’s got his eyes closed._

_Why doesn’t he look?_

_Maybe he’s worried he couldn’t get it up if he saw me?_

_And what about the green undies thing?  He just said ‘yeah’ when I asked him if he liked ‘em.  And what does he mean by girls are more than their bodies?_

_Does that mean that he likes in spite of my body?_

_I know he can’t like me because of it… but I don’t want him to like me in spite of it!  That makes it seem like me body is just some awful thing that he has to put up with to get to the other parts of me._

_Isn’t it though?_

_Isn’t that exactly what it is?_

_I can’t wear a G-string in front of him; he won’t even look at it._

She started to take the bra off when Finn crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her from behind.  He started to kiss her neck from behind, his hands on her nearly naked hips.

“Didn’t tell me it were a G-string.”  His voice was husky with lust. 

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

“It matters.”  He answered between kisses

“It’s not like you’d look.”  Finn stopped kissing her neck, he looked at her reflection in the mirror, his stomach pressed against her back, his hands still on her hips. 

“I do look.”  He said, “I know I shouldn’t, but I do.”

“Shouldn’t?”  She gave him a confused look and he bit his lip and looked away. 

“I… I know how you don’t like your body.  You got stuff.”  He said softly before returning his eyes to hers, “you couldn’t get naked in front of me.”  He looked ashamed of himself, “when I saw how brave you were, you know, overcoming your fear of being naked, I promised myself I’d make it easier for you by not looking at your body until you asked me to.”  He looked at her face for a moment, willing her to understand and forgive him for what he was about to say, “So I try to keep my eyes above the neck line, so you’d know you’re safe with me… but… but… I’m so sorry Rae… but I have looked… I try not to… but I have looked… more than once… when you wouldn’t see me looking… and I’m sorry…” His voice was filled with a pleading that Rae just couldn’t understand. 

“Why are you sorry?  You’re my boyfriend, aren’t you supposed to look?”

“Aye but, you’ve got stuff, and that’s fine, I’ll deal.  Cos I don’t wanna make that stuff worse by being a dickhead, I want you to know that you’re so much more to me that just a body.”

_That’s what he meant?  It weren’t that he didn’t want to look, it’s that he thought I didn’t want him to look._

_I can’t even understand how much I love him._

_All the things he does for me – to try and help me._

_Kind people are so rare._

_I was so lucky that I got one of the few kind people in the world who happened to also be very sexy._

“It’s alright Finn.”

“Yeah?”  He felt the weight in the pit of his stomach lift as she nodded in answer.

“How much have you seen?”

“Not enough.”  He smiled embarrassed, “I feel like such a perve… I just take quick glances when I can.”  He laughed nervously.  “I’m sorry.”  He repeated anxiously and bit the inside of his mouth.

_It’s strange to see this side of Finn.  When I think of the boy who smashed the fuck outta that guy at the pub and try to put that face to him right now, it don’t work._

_I never seen him hit anyone except for me._

_I never seen him shake like a little lamb for anyone but me._

_Oh my god… do I really affect him that much?_

The thought captured Rae’s mind and she looked back at Finn, studiously keeping his eyes on her face, his hands on her hips, his left thumb stroking her softly, his face showing his concern. 

_I were terrified.  But it were time to put this behind me.  To put it behind us._

“I want you to look Finn.  Take your time, and really look.”

“Are you sure?”

“What’s the point of wearing sexy lingerie if you’re not gonna look?”  She snapped. 

“I want you to know that you can tell me to stop whenever you want.”

“I know.”  She answered, but her tone made it clear that what he had said was important to her.  He kept looking at her eyes in the reflection for a moment longer before letting his eyes drop. 

_I watched him, as his eyes dropped to below the neckline, me heart were hammering._

_But I heard him sigh in my ear, sounding, satisfied?_

His mouth opened and his looked turned to one of yearning, his blinking seemed to slow down as he took in everything he could see in the mirror. 

_His hands kept twitching on me hips._

_But the best bit was that I could feel him getting hard.  Could feel his breathing getting harder, knew he was getting right proper horny._

_His hands shot off me hips like he couldn’t contain them anymore and he brought them up to me tits, grabbing them real rough like through the bra.  His eyes kept looking at me in the mirror, and then he did this sexy whimper, of like, pleasure when he saw himself groping me._

_He whipped that bra off quicker than I could of.  And grabbed me tits again as if they were made of gold._

_When he touched me stomach I felt real unsure of him touching there, of seeing himself touching me there.  But it were alright, he seemed fine with it._

Finn’s fingers found one of her stretch marks on her stomach and Rae could feel her face starting to burn.

“What are these?”  He murmured into her ear and Rae had the unexpected juxtaposition of being ashamed of her stretch marks while simultaneously turned on. 

“Um… they’re stretch marks.”  She said softly.  His fingers found another one and ran along it before descending further.  His fingers slipped under the tiny slip of material that was masquerading as underpants and found her clitoris with ease. 

“Rae,” His lips were on her ear, his breath on her neck, his urgency very apparent.  “Can I…” he paused, embarrassed and scared of what she might think.  “Can I watch myself fuck you?”

_I didn’t know what he meant._

_But I nodded me head anyway, mostly because I could only nod me head; the way he was looking at me and touching me was so lustful that I felt like I were in a porno._

_I couldn’t find me words._

His eyes had not yet come back up above the neckline and Rae understood that this was a very physical event for Finn, that so far a great deal of their sex had been highly mental and emotional with the physical element taking third place, but that this was solely physical. 

His body wanted her body.  There was nothing else to it. 

When she nodded his eyes finally returned to her face and she saw such an ache for her body in his eyes that she couldn’t breathe for a moment. 

_I thought I’d seen him as lusty and as horny as was humanly possible already.  But this was something else!_

His action was sudden, he whipped a wooden sitting chair from the wall to in front of her.

“Bend over.”  Rae placed her hands on the chair.

“Get your arse up.”  His voice was ragged with desire.  He looked down at her arse and then up in the mirror at her reflection, his eyes focussing on the way her tits moved as he pulled aside the thin strip of material and ran his fingers down the length of her crack, slipping two of them into her cunt when they found its opening.  He watched his fingers entering her and groaned appreciatively.  He rubbed his cock in her crack and looked up at the reflection, then back down at how his cock looked rubbing between her arse cheeks. 

“Come here.”  He used her arm to pull her up and spin her around.  He kissed her mouth, hard, his tongue forcefully exploring her mouth. 

Rae felt breathless, and completely dominated.  He’d always taken the lead in their sex, but this was different. 

“Look at me.”  She looked up into his eyes, the lust had been damned, but it was barely contained, “you don’t like anything – anything at all – you tell me to stop, and I will.  Got it?”

“Yeah.”  He looked at her for a moment more, and the dam broke.  That hard, insistent kiss again and she was spun back around, he pushed her back into a bending position, one hand on her back, the other grasping her hair.  His control was so precise that she stopped with her hands just millimetres from where they needed to be to position herself as she had been before the kiss.  She barely had time to steady herself before Finn had pulled her G-string side and thrust savagely into her.  She gasped and held onto the chair for dear life.

_He fucked me with a ferocity that would have put hurricanes to shame._

_And then he did something I didn’t expect._

SMACK.

Finn smiled lopsidedly as he watched the shocked look on her face in the mirror, before smacking her other arse cheek as equally hard. 

_Oh god but that does make me lady parts tingle._

He smacked her hard, until red handprints rose up on her round arse.  Then his hands grabbed her hips firmly and he watched the way her body writhed under the force of his thrusts, the way her tits bounced, the look on her face as she embraced and enjoyed this rough treatment.

Finn spread her arse cheeks wide apart and watched as his cock slid in and out of her pussy.

He watched for a long time, transfixed on the image of him fucking Rae Earl. 

_The look on his face is like he died and went to heaven._

_Or like he never wants to forget this moment._

_If I’d have known that he’d been denying himself this pleasure, the pleasure he got from seeing me, maybe I wouldn’t’a been so… I dunno… scared._

He ran his hand up her spine, reaching to her neck, his hand grasping the hair at the back of her head, and pulling gentle at first, but with more firmness so he could pull her head up higher.

“Let me see those tits.”  His hand squeezed her arse firmly and he pulled her hair more, making her arch her back so he could see more of her body, he pulled harder still until her hands came off the chair, her back arching beautifully to keep herself open to him, to keep him inside of her. 

“Look at yourself.”  He ordered. 

_I’d been avoiding looking in that mirror.  But I had to now didn’t I?_

“Look at yourself getting fucked by me.” 

Rae saw herself, saw her breasts moving, saw the look of desire on Finn’s face as his eyes crawled all over her body.  His hand let go of her hair, but she stayed up, watching their bodies moving in unison.  He snaked his hand around to her breasts and lifted one, squeezing it, watching the flesh bulge between his outstretched fingers. 

_I didn’t realise that’s how we looked when we fucked._

_For the first time I didn’t see myself as just a fat girl getting some from a fit boy._

_I saw myself as a sex goddess._

_When Finn pulled me by the back of my neck to make me kiss him, I kissed him harder than he kissed me._

_He might be fucking me – using my body.  But I wanted it.  I wanted him to devour my body._

_This was a different type of sex._

_This must be what other girls experienced – being just a body._

_I knew I shouldn’t like it so much.  But I did._

_And I think it were because I knew that when it were over, Finn wold go back to being my Finn, and I’d be his girlfriend, who he saw as so much more than just a body.  He’d tried to make sure I knew that so much, that for the past 2 weeks he’d been afraid to look at me proper in case I hated my body more cos of it._

_This was a violent, triumphant celebration of my body finally being seen, of my body being lusted after, being desirable.  If anything I wanted him to be rougher.  To want it so much that he couldn’t control himself._

_I wanted to disappear into me own body and relish it, enjoy it, love it._

There was a moment of hesitation in his eyes before he spoke, cockily;

“Kneel down.”  He commanded. 

_Yes._

_Yes – I wanted to suck his cock more than I ever wanted to suck any lolly or candy cane or chocolate in me whole life._

He smiled as Rae, keeping her eyes on him knelt and still looking him in the eye took as much of his length into her mouth that she could. 

She moved her mouth up and down his shaft and smiled as she felt his hands in her hair, his hips starting to thrust, forcefully, but not too hard for her to handle it. 

He held her still, his cock deep down her throat and pushed harder, going deeper, until he felt her gag reflex kick in, then he back off slightly, thrusting shallower for a while before pushing in deep again.  This time, slowly, he pushed the entire length of his cock into her mouth and throat.  He thrust while he was deep in her throat, enjoying the sounds she made, the way her eyes rolled back, and the gasp for air she took when he finally withdrew.  He gave a lusty, throaty chuckle and lifted up his cock, Rae knew what he wanted and greedily licked his balls, taking them into her mouth one at a time.  Then she took his cock in her hand and licked the length of him, ending at the tip, her eyes on his. 

“Look at the mirror Finn.”

_Me voice sounded different, deeper, more sure.  Seductive even._

Finn looked in the mirror, and he saw Rae’s arse; perfect and round and her head moving up and down as she sucked his cock.  He looked back down and saw his cock disappearing into her mouth, then back up at the mirror at her arse.

She put her hands on Finn’s arse and pulled him into her mouth deeper and he obliged thrusting into her mouth, his hands still grasping her hair. 

“No I don’t wanta cum yet.”  He motioned for Rae to stand up but she kept licking his shaft, her eyes on his.

“Up.”  He smirked deviously.  She stood up, feeling like sexual goddess.

“Sit.”  He nodded at the chair, Rae slid her G-string off, went to the chair and sat on the edge, her legs as far apart as she could get them.  He knelt in front of her and slid his fingers into her.

“You’re so fucking wet.”  He groaned.  Rae’s mouth turned up at the corners sinuously as she kept her hungry eyes on him.

“Lick it.”  She ordered.  “Lick it with your eyes open the whole time.”

Finn licked the corner of his mouth longingly and lowered his mouth to her vagina.  Rae leant back in the chair and looked in the mirror.  She saw her body reposed and Finn’s head moving between her stretched apart thighs, his body tense with focus, his erection slowly dripping pre-cum onto the floor. 

He tried to put his tongue inside of her, to taste her and Rae moaned throatily as his tongue probed her.  But it was best when he lapped hungrily at her clitoris and she let him know this by grabbing his hair and crying out loudly when he did. 

Soon she felt her innards tingling, felt the fire in her vagina spreading through her stomach, she kept her eyes on the mirror as she came, her hands pulling Finn’s hair hard keeping his face pushed into her cunt as she shuddered and gasped. 

She hadn’t even finished shuddering and Finn was inside her again.  Instantly her waning orgasm peaked again and she felt her nails raking down his back as she was wracked by a second, an instant third and then a fourth orgasm, her screams of ecstasy growing louder until she lost her voice and cried out in ragged voiceless cries.  She watched herself clinging to him and shuddering through her orgasms as he squeezed her arse hard and fucked her, first looking at her and then at the mirror.  As her orgasms started to pass she noticed a growing moan coming from Finn’s throat.  She leaned back in the chair and he looked down and watched his cock ramming into her again, that dirty lusty smile on his face.  His eyes slid up her body.

_Bloody hell he’s fucking me with his eyes, while he’s fucking me._

His groan intensified and he withdrew at the last moment, spurting his cum up her reclined body; her pussy, her stomach, her tits, her cheek, and one drop in her hair. 

She watched his eyes crawl over her body, looking at his cum on her and realised that she had been claimed as his. 

He looked back up at her face, worry starting to creep in to his eyes.  Rae took her index finger and wiped the cum off her cheek and licked it from her finger.  Finn’s eyes narrowed in desire.

“You can cum in my mouth next time you fuck me like that.”  She said, her finger still in her mouth.  “If you want to.” 

“You’re so fucking sexy.”  He said panting and shaking his head in admiration. 

 

 

***

 

 

_Oh fuck Finn, why were you so rough?  If she’s got bruises on her arse cos of the way you manhandled her…_

He felt his heart sink at the thought of it.  She took his hand and walked to the shower.

“Can I still look at your body?’  He asked suddenly.

“Yeah.”

“You’ll tell me if you don’t want me to – cos I’ll stop if-“

“It’s fine.”

“Listen Rae, I’m sorry.”  He saw her confused face and hurried on, “I’m sorry I were so rough, sorry that I hit you… your arse and grabbed you so hard…  and… and pulled your hair… and…. Did I hurt you?”

“No.  It were actually nice.”

“Alright…”  He smiled confused, “and I’m sorry that I… that I… spunked on you.”  He bit his bottom lip and wiped the place where his cum had landed on her face.  She turned and looked in the bathroom mirror at herself, covered in his semen.

“It’s alright.”  She turned back to him, “I liked it.”

“You… well…”

“I liked it.”  She reassured him and turned to start the shower.

“Yeah but it were s’posed to be your weekend, and-“

“It’s fine, I liked watching you get off with my body.”

_She liked it?  Was she bored with the way we was doing it before?_

“But I don’t want’a do it like that all the time… I like… I like making love to you the most.”  He lowered his eyes and fidgeted with his fingers. 

“Me too.”  He put his hands on her waist.

“Yeah?”

“Yes Finn.  This is just another way for us to do it.  Another way I liked.  I’ve liked it all so far.”

“So you’d wanna try it rough like that again?”

“Yeah.”  Rae nodded her head and bit her bottom lip.  He saw the way she was smiling; she really had liked it.

_Rae Earl’s got the bit of a vixen in her._

_Would it be too soon to tell her I love her?_

_Me dad’d tell me that I’m 17 and I don’t know nought about love._

_Leave off Finn.  Just enjoy her smile.  And the way she makes you feel.  Don’t overthink it.  That’s what me Nan always told me._

He kissed her, hoping that she understood everything that he felt.  He smiled gingerly, still feeling worried that he’d been too rough, and wiped the semen from her hair gently.  He took some shampoo and washed her hair.  Taking time to make sure that he got every strand.

“Conditioner.”  She reminded him after he rinsed her hair.

“What?’  He looked confused.

“You’re such a boy.”

“Aye.”  He laughed.  She grabbed the conditioner and handed it to him.

_I washed and conditioned… whatever the fuck that is… her hair.  I washed her body._

_I tried to memorise every centimetre of her as I ran the soap over her.  It were so nice to look at her properly while I touched her, to not only feel her body, but really see it._

_She’s so perfect._

_And so sexy._

_And so, so beautiful._

_But I can’t tell her these things, I’ve already put too much on her body, I don’t want her to think that it’s all that matters, not when she hates it so much._

_And I wouldn’t know how to say it proper anyway._

 

 

 

 

_ ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ by The Smiths _

 

Rae was muttering angrily as she went through her bag.

“Alright girl?’  Finn sat beside her and towelled his wet hair.

“You can tell Chloe packed.  I’ve got nothing but skirts and no pants and no tights.  There’s hardly any underwear in here!”

“I told her to pack for a dirty weekend.  I think she did alright.”

“Yeah, but what am I gonna wear on the plane?” 

“A skirt.  With no pants and no tights.” Finn cupped her vagina and put his mouth to her neck, “I’ll be right proper distracted Miss Earl.”

“I can’t Finn!”

“You could wear your red dress again.  I washed it.”  He smiled slyly.

“You like that red dress.”

“I like you in that red dress.”  He answered seriously.  She smiled, absurdly pleased. 

“Do we have to clean up before we go?”  She changed the topic. 

“Chop’s organising people from the village to do it.”

“How long do we have until we have to go?”

Finn turned his eyes to the bedside table and sighed heavily.

“Better get your kit on!”

_I didn’t want it to end.  It had been the best weekend of me life.  Although I think me clacker’s gonna fall off – we’ve had that much sex, and he’s still kissing me neck like he wants to go again._

_He must really like me._

_Or at least really want me._

_It’s nice._

“Wear the black ones?”  He asked nodding towards the black lingerie.

“You bloody pervert!” 

“Definitely.”  Finn replied cheekily.  He sat in the chair he’d just fucked her on and leaned back, the tip of his thumb between his teeth.

_He watched me get dressed, but the whole time he looked like at me like he were undressing me with his eyes._

_I wonder what would happen if we just missed the flight?_

He pulled his boxers and jeans on, but hadn’t even zipped them up when the unmistakable sound of a car door slamming could be heard.

“Is that another limo?” 

“Come look with me.”  He sauntered out of the room, shirtless, long scratch marks down his back.  Rae opened her mouth in shock.

_I haven’t even got long nails- how did the fuck did that happen?_

Rae followed him down the stairs and just before they got to the front door Finn turned to her and put his hand on her waist his lips to her ear.

“Take you G-string of and give it me.”  She turned her surprised face to him and he nodded that he was serious.  Rae slid the G-string off and handed it to him. 

His face was lustful, his eyes undressing her as he put it up to his face, smelling it.

“You was wearing this when I fucked you.  It smells like our sex.”  Rae felt a familiar tingle in her body and wished that they didn’t have to go, she wanted him again.  Now.  The look on his face told her that he knew what affect his words had on her.  He smelled the G-string again and put it on his pocket before turning and opening the front door. 

Izzy, Chloe and Archie wear standing near the stairs that up to the veranda, looking over a map and arguing.  Rae felt instantly, supremely aware that she wasn’t wearing underwear. 

“This can’t be it though?”  Chloe sounded unsure as she poked at the map, “Was we s’pose to turn here?”

“I’m sure it is the right place.”  Izzy tried to interject.

“I didn’t take a wrong turn, ok?”  Archie answered Chloe testily. 

Rae’s turned her face to Finn for explanation.

“I said that we had the place to ourselves until Monday Miss Earl, not that we was leaving on Monday.”

“Rae!”  Izzy turned as she heard Finn’s voice and lugged a huge bag up to her, “I got you some ‘not-dirty-weekend’ clothes here!”

“I told you!”  Archie tried to say but Chloe was running up to hug Rae.  The girls started talking, asking questions about the surrounding area.

“I don’t know… I’ve kinda stayed inside the whole weekend.”  Rae responded.

“Were you having sex the whole time?”  Izzy asked excitedly.  Finn dug into his jeans pockets, feeling the G-string in one and his cigarettes in the other, he pulled out the packet and found that he still had a few that he’d made earlier left.  He lit one and sauntered over to Archie.

Finn and Archie chest bumped and started to talk about the trip up.

“The fuck’s Chop?”  Finn asked concerned.

“He wouldn’t let anyone drive with him, said he had to concentrate.  Said you’d kill him if he pranged it.  Twat.”  Archie shook his head.

“Wouldn’t he let you drive it?”  Finn laughed.

“Nope.”

“Aye well it’s not his to let you drive, so good.”  Finn answered seriously.

“Saying ‘aye again Finn?”

“You what?”

“You haven’t really said it since you were a kid?”  Archie prodded gently.  A ghost of a remembrance lit Finn’s eyes, he smiled sadly. 

“Yeah.  I remember.”

“It’s nice to hear it again.”  Archie said as he saw the car in the distance and motioned towards it.  Finn grinned broadly and turned back to Rae, she hadn’t seen it yet as she chatted away.  Archie drew the girl’s attention to it as Chop pulled into the long driveway in a beautiful car. 

“Holy fuck!”  Rae exclaimed and the look on Finn’s face became cautious, “Chop get a new car?”  She walked down the stairs to Finn and Archie, Izzy and Chloe giving each other a conspiratorial grin behind her. 

“It’s a car that Chop and me have been working on for a couple of years.  For me.” Finn explained drawing heavily on his cigarette.

“That’s your car?”  Finn nodded in response

“The body is a Rover, p4, 75, 4 door saloon.  I was right lucky to get me hands on that…”  Rae looked blankly at him and he revised his plan to tell her all about the engine specifics and instead focussed on the making of the car, “Me and Chop did a lot of scavenging to get all the parts and we’ve been putting the engine together.  It were the stereo, paint and the chrome work and the seats that cost me anything, the rest were salvaged from tips and such.  Mostly illegally.”  He pulled a ‘lucky-we-didn’t-get-caught’ face.  “But we got it through registration, so it’s fine now.”

Rae looked at the shiny black car, the silver chrome work on the wheels, lights and front grill.

“Is this why you got a loan from your dad?”

“I thought you hadn’t heard that.”  He looked frustrated that she knew about that, “Aye, but only a couple hundred quid, and I’ve nearly finished repaying it already.  You don’t think about that ok?”  Rae nodded confused by Finn’s apparent distress, “Most of the car was pieced together for no cost at all.”  He touched her face gently, making sure he had her full attention, “This car’s not about how much it cost… it’s about how much effort and love that went into making it.  I learned about mechanics to make this car!”

“Alright.”  She soothed his sudden, inexplicable upset. 

“At first I were gonna let Chop do all the mechanics himself.  But then I had to do it, you understand?”

“Yeah.”  Rae answered having no idea what he meant at all. 

Chop sat in the car, his hands lovingly caressing the steering wheel.

“I don’t want’a let her go.”  He looked murderously at Finn who held out his hands for the spare set of keys, the others were left dangling from the ignition.  Finn opened the back seat for Rae and she climbed in.  Inside was done in cream tones with leather seats and chrome finishes. 

“Are you gonna Christen my baby?”  Chop sounded unimpressed.

“Give us half hour.”  Finn answered.

“Half an hour!” 

“Piss off, Chop!”  Finn laughed.

“Alright.”  He got out of the car and motioned for everyone to go inside.

“But the bags!”  Chloe looked back at Archie’s car.

“C’mon Archie, let’s be quick about it!”  Chop and Archie quickly unpacked the car, Rae and Finn watching through the back window laughing.  When the gang where inside Rae turned and looked, smiling at Finn’s worried face.

“I like your car!”  She touched the seats, “The leather’s real soft.”  Finn leaned forward in between the front seats and pressed play on the CD player.  _‘Spaceman’_ by Babylon Zoo played and Rae turned her face to him in mock fury. 

“If you think I’m gonna fuck you in the back seat of your car, listening to this song, you’re very mistaken Finnley Finnigan.”

He laughed and flicked his cigarette butt out of the still open door. 

“There is a bit of problem with the car though.”  He turned to her very seriously.

“What?”  Rae asked, completely taken in by his serious face.

“I prefer me bike.” He held up his hand, the spare set of keys dangling from his fingertips.

“You what?”  Rae looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“I prefer me bike.”  He answered with a big grin, “don’t want the car.”  He took her hand and placed the keys in it before closing her fingers over them.

“You’re giving me your car?”  Her face was a picture of perfect shock and disbelief.

“Rego’s already in your name Miss Earl.  It’s your car.”

“It’s too much.  You’ve already done so much.  You’ve spent so much money on me!”

“Aye, I’ve done a bit, but it’s not cost as much as you think.  It were me Nan’s necklace, the gang paid for a lot of the week away, and I’d already done a lot of the work on the car before I even knew you.”  He tried to sooth her worries, but then felt he’d gone too far, “But yes, it cost more than I’ve ever spent on anyone else.” He saw her eyes tearing up, and fretted. 

“You didn’t have to do this.”  She whispered.

“I know.  But it’s you Rae, I’ll spend all me money on you.  And I just had so many ideas and I didn’t know which one to choose.”  Rae laughed and he smiled, worrying less, “I thought to myself; ‘well you’re not gonna be working for the next couple’a years on account’a school, might as well do all your ideas now while you’re working and you can afford to!’  I don’t have a job anymore,”  he shrugged, “and I prob’ly won’t for a while, so, next year’s birthday will be much more low-key, I promise.  I might not get you anything.”  He joked. 

She took the keys and looked around at the car, her head shaking slowly.

“It alright?”  He asked nervously.

“Yes.”  She answered him seriously.  Her eyes filled with tears and her voice betrayed her disbelief and wonderment.

“I know you can’t drive yet, so I’ll teach you.”

“Can we call it our car?”

“If that’s what you want.”  He gently wiped a tear from her cheek. 

“And you’ll have the other set of keys?”  He nodded slowly.

“What’s going on in your head girl?”  He asked concerned and Rae put her hands up to her face and sobbed.

“No one’s ever…”  She cried and Finn put his arms around her protectively.  A moment later her wet mouth was on his, her tears washing over his face, her vulnerability and her urgency producing a need in him to protect her, to care for her, and to be with her, that he had never known. 

“Thank you.”  She said through her kisses.

“So it alright?”  He asked her, her tears on his face, her breath cooling his skin.

“Yeah Finn, it alright.”  She copied his intonation.  He chuckled and put his hand to her face.

“I...”  He paused lost in her eyes, “I care a lot about you Rae.”  He bit the inside of his mouth, “you’re not like anyone else.”  His hand found the back of her neck, tangled in her hair and gently pulled her closer, so that he could kiss her, slowly, softly. 

“I feel the same.”  She whispered between kisses. 

Slowly Rae climbed onto his lap, facing him, their kisses still slow and intense, the passion growing.  Rae reached down and pulled at Finn’s pants and he lifted himself and pulled them down a little, she’d slid him into her before he’d finished the movement.  They made love slowly, their tongues slow-dancing around each other, their hands held, their hearts aching for each other. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Country House’ by Blur _

 

When they went back into the house Chloe and Izzy were in the kitchen unpacking groceries while Archie and Chop were looking at bottles of alcohol and piles of CDs.

“Are we gonna get shit-faced tonight or what?”  Chop held up a bottle of vodka.

“I dunno, I’m pretty tired after that drive.”  Izzy pouted.

“Getting up at 4 o’clock in the fucking morning is not conducive to a night on the piss Chop.”  Archie agreed.

“Movie night.”  Chloe smiled at Izzy.

“You two have been banging on bout a movie night since we started planning this fucking thing!”  Chop rejected the notion.

“We can get smashed tomorrow.”  Chloe answered and pulled out some Videos from her bag, “c’mon Chop” She exaggerated her pleas.

“After that drive I’m with the girls.”  Archie sat at the kitchen table and shrugged when Chop gave him a dirty look.

“Now I know you two are keen to let loose, you’ve been stuck up here alone all weekend, you must have some energy to burn?”  Chop turned his debate to Rae and Finn.  They didn’t even have to look at each other.

“Movies.”  Finn answered.

“Definitely movies.”  Rae agreed.

“You fucking mingers.” 

“I vote The Breakfast Club.”  Archie ignored Chop, “it’s a classic.”

“No, I want The Crow!”  Chloe appealed to Rae, “it’s got a good soundtrack, and Brandon Crow is so hot.”

“You know he’s dead right?”  Archie snarked.

“Doesn’t mean he’s not hot.”

“Actually it means exactly that – he’s the exact opposite of hot.” 

“Stop it you two.”  Izzy mothered, “I want to watch Forest Gump.” 

This was met by a general round of groans and refusals.

“Fine then, let’s watch some sexed up violent thing.”  She snapped.

“Alright!”  Chop answered, “Pulp Fiction!”

“Reservoir Dogs.”  Finn countered.

“Didn’t bring it.”  Chop replied.

“Who’s the minger now?”  Finn laughed. 

“Clueless?”  Izzy tried again.

“NO!”  Came three male voices. 

“Oh is that Trainspotting?”  Rae asked and she picked up the Video.

“Yeah, and we got; Scream, The Usual Suspects-“ Archie went through the pile.

“Who the fuck bought The Lion King?”  Chop shook his head and Izzy raised her hand blushing.  He smiled at her and kissed her hard.

“Oi leave off!”  Chloe laughed, “The Lion King’s alright!” 

“Romeo + Juliet.  Izzy did you bring anything good?”  Chop continued.

“That were me!”  Archie, “Shakespeare is-“

“No one wants it Archie!”  Chop put it aside.

“We’ll watch it later Archie.”  Izzy looped her arm in his.

“From Dusk Til Dawn,” Finn looked at the cover and then picked up the next video, “Natural Born Killers.  Sounds cheery.”

“Seven.”  Chop held it up.  “That’s what we’re watching.  You lot won’t let me drink – this is what we’re watching.”

There was argument, but Chop was resolved.  Half an hour later, with snacks and junk food in hand, everyone started to settle down in front of the television.  Finn wandered in and decided to take the lounge with the armrest and enough room for Rae to sit next to him, he turned to sit.

“What happened to you back mate?”  Archie asked, concerned as Chloe and Chop entered the room.

“Sex.”  He answered, too tired to make up a plausible explanation that would protect his and Rae’s privacy.  He hadn’t even bothered to button up the top of his jeans.  He practically collapsed into the chair. 

“That good hey?’  Chop joked and nudged Finn.

“Yeah.”  Finn smiled smuttily, “that good.”

“What happened?  Anything kinky?”  He asked for details but Izzy and Rae came in with some party pies and other culinary delights and Finn was saved from having to tell Chop to leave off. 

“I didn’t even know this place had a tv.”  Rae mumbled as she sat next to Finn.  He shook his head bewildered.

“Maybe they bought it with them?” 

“Course we didn’t fucking bring it with us!”  Chop said as he put the video in the player and sat on the floor, Izzy immediately curling up next to him.  “What the fuck have you been doing for the last 3 days?”  He asked knowingly.

Finn’s eyes strayed to Rae’s and she had an impish smile on her face. 

“Don’t want’a know!”  Chloe said seeing that smile.  Finn laid his head onto the arm rest of the lounge as the trailers played, and opened his arm for Rae to lie with him, she snuggled into his side, his arm resting across her shoulders.  His eyes closed as he settled in for a nap.

“What are you doing?”  Chop asked and he paused the video.

“I’m tired.”  Finn groaned

“What do you mean you’re tired?”  Archie looked over.  “We just drove ten fucking hours!”  Archie threw popcorn at Finn and he groaned.

“Piss off Arch!”  He grumbled.

“No, come on you two!”  Izzy joined in, “You gotta watch it.”

“My eyes are open.”  Rae joked; she intended to close them the minute the movie started. 

“Finn don’t let the gang down!” 

“Sod off Chop!”

“Why are you so tired?”  Izzy asked concerned.

“I’ve had sex like 20 something times in the last 3 days.  I need to fucking sleep.  Alright?” 

Rae lowered her head but couldn’t help but smile, she knew that only the depths of need would drive Finn to say something so personal so openly; he must be exhausted. 

“How the fuck did you manage that?”  Chop asked seriously.

“All the blue balls I had from waiting so long.”  He pulled Rae’s hair teasing and she hit him in the thigh.  “Now stop fucking talking to me, I think me jaw’s freezing up.”

“Your jaw?  What the fuck?”  Chop looked confused.

“From going down too much Chop!”  Chloe laughed. 

“You dirty fuckers!”  Chop laughed and Finn groaned and tried to get more comfortable for napping.

“Did you use the underwear?”  Izzy asked happily.

“That’s it, I’m taking the car, I’m driving 10 hours home.”  Archie laughed.

“Iz I don’t think we should talk about it, gotta movie to watch.”  Rae gave her a look that told her they’d talk about it later and Izzy nodded knowingly. 

“How the fuck has your knob not fallen off?”  Chop chuckled.

“No fucking idea.”  Finn answered grumpily, his eyes closed. 

“And your clacker must be a right proper mess!”  He nodded at Rae.

“We’re not talking about Rae’s lady bits anymore, ok Chop.”  Finn’s eyes were still closed but the tone in his voice made Chop’s smile fall slightly, unsure as to how serious Finn was. 

“Alright.”  He answered diplomatically.

“What do you mean by anymore?”  Rae asked laughing. 

“Well-” Chop began to reply.

“Nothing!”  Finn cut him off loudly; grumpy and tired, his eyes resolutely shut.  Chop looked at Rae and shrugged enigmatically as he settled back in and un-paused the video. 

As soon as the opening credits started Izzy put her hands up over her mouth.

“I don’t think I’m going to like this movie.”  Her eyebrows creased in fear.

“You’ll be fine.”  Chop put his arms around her protectively, “I gotcha.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Tonight Tonight’ by Smashing Pumpkins _

__

When Rae opened her eyes Finn was sitting in the chair, smoking and watching her. 

“That’s pretty fucking creepy Finn.” 

“Sorry.”  He grinned, “I just like watching you sleep.”

“How long have you been awake?”  He looked down at his cigarette and then back at her.

“About 10 minutes.” 

“Not too creepy then.”  She yawned and stretched before heading to the bathroom, not bothering to close the door. 

“It’s 10am.”  He said as he appeared in the door.

“Fuck!”  Rae laughed, “We shagged ourselves into a sleep coma!” 

“Speaking of shagging…”  He smiled and looked over at the spa, “fancy a ride girl?”

 

 

When they got downstairs Chop, Chloe and Archie were watching a movie.

“About time!”  Chloe called in when she saw them sitting down at the kitchen table to the leftover breakfast her and Archie had prepared. 

“Where’s Iz?”  Rae asked as they sauntered in to the lounge room with plates of food.

“Still in bed.”  Chop scrunched up his face, “she likes to have a good long sleep.”

“Like you two.”  Archie nodded to them.

“I were fucking exhausted!”  Finn conceded.

“Can’t leave you two alone!”  Chloe responded.  “Maybe we should go get Izzy so we can get going?”

“What have we got planned?”  Finn asked around a mouthful of food.

“Tobogganing.”  Archie grinned as Finn rolled his eyes. 

“Nah, we can’t wake her up, she gets right pissed off.”  Chop answered Chloe.

“I’d like to see Izzy pissed off.”  Archie laughed.

“No you don’t!”  Chop answered seriously.  “I mean we used to have quickies before we went to the chippy every morning before school right, so I was thinking I could just go round there and wake her up for ‘em.  Only took twice before I knew you don’t get between Izzy and her sleep.  Fuck I miss those quickies though.”  He stared off thoughtfully. 

“God how will your dick survive?”  Chloe asked unsympathetically. 

“You implying his girlfriend’s not just there for his dick Chlo?”  Finn joked.

“Alright!”  Chop answered grumpily as Izzy entered the room looking sleepy. 

“Hi.”  She said as she sat down yawning.

“Still tired?”  Chop asked as he kissed her cheek.  She nodded sleepily.

“Maybe you’re oversleeping babe?”  Chloe said concerned.

“Maybe.”  Izzy answered.

“Yeah, I read it can be as bad as under-sleeping.”  She continued. 

Chop leaned in and kissed her on the cheek again as she yawned, setting off Rae and Finn.

“You lot a right bunch of sorry sods!”  Chop complained as Izzy poured herself some juice.

“I don’t mean to be!”  She yawned, “Juice’ll perk me up!”  She smiled. 

Finn leaned over Rae’s bowl and picked up her spoon, putting it in his mouth.

“Oi, I weren’t finished!” 

“I just wanted to see what it tasted like.”  He handed back the spoon.

“You’re such a boy.”  Chloe said shaking her head.

“Aye, what else am I s’pose to be?’  He asked as he grabbed a sausage and ate it with his fingers.  Chloe and Izzy shook their heads at him while Chop and Archie started to plan the day more fully. 

Half an hour later, Rae found herself turning around on the spot, desperately trying to take in everything she saw. 

“It’s beautiful.”  Snowy mountains rose out of endless winter plains, crystalline lakes sparkled in the distance and fat woolly sheep crossed the roads, cars waiting patiently to get around them.  She kissed Finn and watched as his mouth drew up at the corners and his eyes sparkled with happiness, he wrapped his hand around hers and kissed her fingertips through her glove. 

Chop was leading them to a good tobogganing hill, all the time banging on about spending Christmases up here with his family and all the stuff he and his 4 brothers got up to. 

“Chop, if you’re so rich why don’t you buy Izzy a car?”  Chloe asked as they trudged in the snow with the toboggans.

“You what?”  He asked, “I’m not rich.  This all belongs to me grandparents, me parents are poor as dirt.”  Chop shrugged.  “Me Dad’s a gambler.”  He gave in way of explanation when he saw their confused faces.  They trudged on for another 40 minutes before Chop stopped and turned to them. 

“Here we are!”  He stood at the top of a long steep hill.

“There’s no fucking way I’m going down that.”  Rae felt her heart beating fast as she saw the size of the hill.  Chop shrugged again and turned to Izzy who shook her head, he hands under her chin, her eyes wide and terrified. 

“Alright then!”  He shrugged as he placed the toboggan against his stomach and dove down the hill head first.

“Holy fuck!”  They laughed as they watched him, screaming joyously all the way down.  Finn put his toboggan down and turned to Rae.

“Come on.”  He sidled up to her with his best attempt at a convincing face.  Rae shook her head as she saw Archie and Chloe on the other toboggan trying to convince Izzy to join them. 

“Please.”  He sat down on the toboggan leaving a place in front of him for her.

“Oh fucking hell.  You can’t use the ‘p’ word on me!”  She said indignantly and he grinned, clearly pleased with himself.  She sat down on it and Izzy gave her a look of despair before getting on the toboggan between Archie and Chloe.

“You better hold on to me!”  Rae said terrified as Finn started to push the toboggan forward.

“Always.”  He whispered in her ear as the toboggan started to careen down the hill, Rae and Finn screaming and yelling, Archie, Chloe and Izzy sliding beside them, Izzy screaming on the top of her lungs. 

 

 

Exhausted and laughing the gang headed back to the house as dusk set in.  The boys ran around and at one point Chop climbed a tree, but the girls walked steadily chatting about the weekend they’d just had.  As they finally got to the front stairs of the house, Izzy stopped, her hand to her face.

“What’s up?”  Chop asked.

“I’ve got a nosebleed!”  She sounded perplexed.

“Put your head back!”  Chop said as he put a hand on her lower back.

“No put it forward.”  Archie countered.

“Well which way do you want me to put it?”  She exclaimed annoyed.

“I used to get nosebleeds all the time.”  Archie tried to convince Chop, who after a moment’s thought nodded.

“Head forward Izzy.”  He agreed.

“Alright.”  Her voice was muffled and blood dropped from the hand covering her nose, onto the snow.

“Let’s get you over the kitchen sink.”  Archie said as he guided her inside. 

“Chop?”  She asked and he followed.

Rae, Finn and Chloe at around the kitchen table, trying not to stare at Izzy as she bent over the kitchen sink, her nose bleeding.  Chop, holding her hair back, had been postulating for the past few minutes on what might have caused it – everything from pollen to the cold air. 

“How long have you had the ear infections?”  Archie asked suddenly as he placed a wet flannel on the back of her neck.

“On and off for about a month.” 

“It’s probably that.”  He said to Chop’s worried face.

“Yeah but how’s ears got to do with her nose?”

“I dunno how it all works but when I was about 12 I had a bunch o’ ear infections, ended up getting into me sinuses, got nosebleeds so easy after that.”

“I remember that.”  Finn moaned, “you were not fun to be around that year.”  Rae scrunched her face up at him, “He fucking whinged.”  Finn explained.  Archie gave him a ‘fuck off’ grimace and turned back to Izzy.

“You’ll have to get some antibiotics.”

“I’m on antibiotics, I’m sick of ‘em!”  She wiped her nose to see if it had stopped.  It hadn’t. 

“Well tell your doctor you need stronger ones.”  Archie said as he turned the flannel over.  “And maybe wear ear plugs at the pool?”

“I tried that, the coach don’t like it cos I can’t hear him scream orders at me.”

“You tell your coach,” Chop’s voice was dangerous, “that if he don’t let you wear ear plugs I’ll fucking knock his block off.” 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Mouth’ by Bush _

 

“Never have I ever had oral sex in a public place.”  Izzy said and Chloe sighed and did a shot.  Finn bit the inside of his mouth, hesitated and also did one, Rae turned to look at him and he shrugged apologetically. 

“Never have I ever had or given a blowjob at a movie.”  Chop said and Chloe took another shot while Finn cleared his throat, kept his eyes forward and also took one. 

_Playing this game made it incredibly clear that Finn had had a lot of experiences… especially with blowjobs._

“Never have I had oral sex with a stranger.” Chloe said smiling.  Finn lowered his eyes and slowly reached his hand out to take another shot while Rae looked at him aghast.

“Sorry.  It were before I knew you.”  He said after he’d swallowed the alcohol.  “Never have I ever had multiple orgasms.”  He teased.  Rae narrowed her eyes at him and took a shot, no one else did and Finn tried not to look too smug as the game continued. 

_As the shot glasses piled up, I was more worried than ever that I couldn’t keep up with Finn’s sexual prowess.  I started counting how many girls he must have been with and I didn’t like it._

_I had to know more._

_But did I really want to know?_

 

 

Finn closed the bathroom door as carefully as he could, staggering slightly, he turned and bumped into Chloe.  They stumbled, grabbing hold of each other and laughed.  Chloe dropped her head onto Finn’s chest and he laughed as he hugged her.

“Let’s go for a walk.”  She slurred and Finn smiled at her. 

“Yep!”  He nodded drunkenly. 

She took his hand and dragged him towards the pool house, he stumbled slightly but maintained his feet. 

Rae and Archie were playing poker while Chop and Izzy made out on the lounge.  Rae looked up to see Chloe leading Finn outside.  Her heart sank, and Archie, seeing the look on her face turned to see where she was looking. 

_I wanted to go after them, to stop what was obviously going to happen.  He were drunk, she was hot and I knew she wanted him._

_I wanted to trust Finn, but how could I ever compete with Chloe?_

“It’ll be fine Rae.”  Archie said softly putting a hand on hers.  She smiled at him and turned her head back toward the pool house.  She couldn’t see them, but she knew they’d gone that way. 

 

 

“I like it out here.”  She looked up through the glass ceiling at the stars.

“Yeah.”  He sat down beside her and nearly stumbled into her again. 

“Finn…”

“Yep?”

“You know I love Rae?  She’s me best mate.”

“Yep.”

“And I know you’re with her.”

“I am.”  He held up his drink in cheers and she clinked it with her own.  She watched him drink and move around drunkenly to the music filtering through from the main house, and then looked back at the stars.  She scooted over to be closer to him and he didn’t seem to object so she scooted in even closer, until their thighs were touching. 

Before she realised what she was doing her lips were on his, gently, but desperately willing his mouth, his body to respond. 

But it didn’t.  He stopped moving, his lips stiff and he slowly pulled away from her.

“What are you doing?”  His voice was still slurred, but not as much as it had been. 

“Nothing.  I’m sorry.”  She felt her head swim.  “Just drunk.” 

“Right.”  He answered, not convinced and unimpressed, but still too drunk to really know how he felt about all of this.  She looked at him again and then up at the stars.  His body was tense and his eyes were staring warily at her. 

“I’m sorry.  Really.  It were nothing.”

“Alright.”  He said cautiously.  She laughed at him and stood up and started to dance, after a while Finn laughed at her and also started to dance.  They danced, laughing, not touching, for some time before she put an arm around his neck and he didn’t respond, just kept dancing, his eyes closed.  She held herself closer to him and looked up to his face. 

“I can’t help but wonder Finn… I wonder what it would have been like if we’d been together.”  She said softly.  She felt his drunken dance stop, saw the happy smile leave his face and his eyes focus slightly as he looked at her more clearly than he’d been able to manage all night in his drunken splendour.  He held her eyes for some time.

“You heard what I said?”  She asked nervously.

“Yes.”  He answered fairly soberly.  “I’m just making sure I’m as sober as possible for my answer.”  He maintained the eye contact, “so you never think that I said what I’m about to say because I were drunk.”  Chloe nodded, butterflies in her stomach.  She smiled expectantly, knowing she should stop him, knowing they shouldn’t do this, but wanting it too much to think clearly.  She turned her chin up, her lips parted, knowing that he would kiss her.  It would be a drunk kiss, but it would be something.  He took a deep breath, his bearing and appearance made it very clear that while he was drunk, he knew what was going on, and took a step back, holding her upper arms in his hands.

“Chloe,” his voice was soft, gentle even, but also firm, resolute.  “The idea of us being together?  I don’t think about it.  Not ever.  Not even for a second.”  He watched her, almost emotionless as her face dropped and she lowered her eyes, “and you shouldn’t think about it either.”

“You would say that… you’re happy.”

“I am.  Very happy.  And so is your.  Best.  Mate.”  Finn emphasised the words, and Chloe nodded, knowing he was right to do so.  “I’m sorry but I want to be clear.  I don’t feel that way for you.  Not one tiny little bit.” 

“You know… I thought we were getting close before Rae came along.”  Chloe said softly.

“Not really.”  Finn answered, “I mean… honestly, when I first met you, before I were with Stacey, I wanted you to suck me dick, and that were it.  But I haven’t thought bout you in a sex way since then.” 

“You only thought of me… sexually?”  Her face screwed up in grief.

“Yeah.  Back then, that’s how I saw you.”

“It never could have been us could it have?”  She asked, tears flowing down her cheek.  Finn easily repressed his urge to comfort his friend; somewhere inside of him, he knew he had to be brutal. 

“No.  Never.  There was no time in the past, and there will be no time in the future when we could be together in that way.”  She covered her face and cried, her body slumping against his but Finn took another step back and held her at arm’s length, “I mean it Chlo.  I belong to Rae, and I have done for a long time, and I intend to for a much longer time.”

“Alright.”  Her voice cracked, and she turned away from him. 

“I wish you nothing but happiness Chlo.  You deserve it.” 

“Just not with you?”  She turned back to him, her eyes pleading.  Finn took in her face, her slumping shoulders, her tears and knew what he had to do.

“I think I’m sober enough now to take your best mate up to our room and make love to her.  Like I intend to do for the rest of my life.  Goodnight Chloe.”  He heard her soft cry of pain as he turned away but he kept walking, straight back to Rae.  As soon as he saw her he grabbed her around the waist and kissed her hard.  Archie looked down at the poker cards with a small thankful smile.

“Fancy heading off?”  She asked him after feeling the heat of his kiss.  In response he took her hand and led her up the stairs. 

 

_Drunken sex with Finn was always good, but last night it was particularly good.  I didn’t know what had happened with Chloe but whatever it was it made Finn particularly interested in everything I did._

_It’s like he spent hours looking at me while he barely moved inside me.  He told me that he wanted it to last forever, so I guess that’s why he was going so slow; so the sex would last longer._

_I quite liked it.  Finn is such a sexual man.  Bloody hell – man._

She sat cross legged and he sat behind her rubbing her neck, the spa bubbles tingling against their skin while the sky lit up with the dawn and they watched through the window.

“Finn…” she hesitated.

“What is it?”  He asked softly.

“What happened with you and Chloe last night?”

“Nothing really.  Just had a chat.”  He shrugged and frowned thoughtfully. 

“What about?”

“I dunno, I was quite drunk.  I remember you being mentioned though.”

“What did she say?”  Rae turned to him anxiously. 

“Oi!  Face ahead!”  He ordered as he realigned himself to how she was sitting now and continued to rub her neck and shoulders. 

“So…?’  Rae asked unrepentantly. 

“It were me doing the talking.  Told her how important y’are t’me.” 

She looked over her shoulder at him, smiling, and he gave her a serious look and motioned for her to face forward again.  She sat in silence and enjoyed the massage for a while, trying to ignore the questions in her mind. 

“Can I ask you another question?”  Finn moved his hands to be rubbing one shoulder and smiled grimly.  He had known that a lot of questions were going to come up after last night.  He grunted affirmatively and tried to keep a positive mood. 

“How many girls have you been with?”

“Rae.”  His voice sounded disheartened, but she persisted. 

“How many?”  He sighed and stopped massaging her.

“Been with in what way?”  He asked as he scooted around so he could see her face. 

She knew he was skirting the issue, but she took it and ran with it anyway. 

“Blow jobs.”  He sighed as if this topic pained him and raised his eyes upwards, as if counting.

“I don’t know Rae,” he answered finally in defeat, “a lot.”

“Right.”  She lowered her eyes and slid into the water more, the bubbles hiding her body.  He ran a hand over his face both in exasperation and a desire to run as far away from this conversation as he could.  He saw her dejected mood and knew he had to fix it. 

“You probably haven’t noticed, but… a lot of girls think I’m kinda fit.”  He shrugged as if this was a little known fact.

“You think I haven’t noticed that?”  Rae was confused. 

“Yeah.”  A sudden realisation hit Rae.

“Do I not treat you like I think you’re fit?”

“Not really.”  He answered self-consciously.  He looked down at himself and his eyebrows furrowed slightly.  His arms twitched as he fought off the urge to cross his arms over his chest. 

“Well…”  Rae didn’t know what to say.

“It’s just that… all the girls that thought I were fit, they’d just almost fall on their knees in front o’me.  I… I guess I took advantage of that.”

“And I didn’t… do… that?”  Rae asked not knowing what to think.  She spent months mooning over him, bewailing his attractiveness in her diary, staring lovingly at him while he smoked.  How could he have missed all of that?

“No.  No you put me in me place right from the get-go.”  He smiled fondly and stroked her thigh with his fingertips.

“I… put you in your place?”  Rae blinked a few times, trying to wrap her head around what he was saying, “how?”  She challenged.

“Most girls, when I said I was good with music would just agree with me.  You were having none of that.  You called me a prick under your breath every time I got near you.”

“You heard that?”  Rae asked, mortified. 

“Aye!”  His fond grin grew broader as she buried her face in her hands, “you ignored me, said you didn’t want to be friends.”

“Yeah but that was cos I wanted to be your girlfriend.”

“Yeah but I didn’t know that!”  He answered meaningfully, “Even when we was alright, you’d tell me I had BO when I tried to get closer to you.”  As he reminisced, Rae saw a strange happiness in his eyes, “for a long time, I’d been cool, fit Finn, could get any girl to suck his dick for nought.  No effort required!”  Her joked humourlessly, “and then you wouldn’t even be me friend.  Me being fit meant nothing to you.  And it felt like who I was actually meant something for once.  I had no idea how to… do that… still don’t.”

“Be you?”  He nodded sadly, but still happily remembering how she had treated him.  “Alright.”  Rae answered feeling confused.

“You know, I’d gotten sick of all the girls before I met you anyway.  Stacey was kinda the last of it.  I was sick of girls that didn’t know nought about me saying they loved me.  I think I were ready for a Rae to come along.  Just didn’t how to handle her when she got there.”

“I do think you’re fit Finn.” 

“I know.  I figured it out.  You know… Willingness to have sex me is a bit of a give-away.”  He grinned. 

“Oh alright then!”  She teased his cocky attitude and his fingers slid higher up her thigh. 

“Can I ask another question?”  Finn nodded, knowing what was coming, and keeping his eyes on the bubbles floating atop the water. 

“How many people have you had sex with?”  He pursed his lips, deciding whether to deflect the question or not.

“Besides you.  Just one.”  He answered at last.

“Stacey.”  Rae said, images of her naked body flashing in her mind bitterly. 

“No.”  Finn winced, knowing that this was going to hurt. 

“No?”

“Cos her mother kicked me out before we got to it.”

“Olivia?”  And there was that pain he’d known was coming, her eyes were drawn, her mouth downturned.

“Yeah.  Yeah it were Olivia in the end.”  Rae felt her face fall and she looked away, a tear slipping from her eye.

“I’m sorry.”  He said dejectedly. 

“It’s alright, we weren’t together.”  She tried to sound as if she really meant it. 

“No we weren’t.”  He wanted her to understand how that had hurt him, to lose the connection he had felt with her.  How that had made him empty.  How Olivia had been… there.  Conveniently there.  “You know… before you, I were a right prick with girls.  And every time you called me a prick – you was right.”

“How were you a prick, really?”  She said keeping her eyes away from him.

“I just knew I could get it, so I did.  Didn’t think for a second about her.”  He felt shame burning his cheeks. 

“What made you change?”

“After I got booted from Stacey’s house.  She told everyone at school that we’d done it.”

“So?”  Rae failed to see how this was a bad thing for him.

“Everyone congratulated me on bagging Stacey.  Like she were a thing.  And she loved that.  Said she were glad to be another one of my girls.  People thought I’d fucked a lot o’ girls.  But I were still a virgin.”

“Why did Stacey lie?”

“To be popular.  She said we’d get around to fucking later so it were alright.  She made me feel like I were a thing.  A pretty thing.”

“Like all the girls you’d been with.” 

“Aye.”  Finn answered honestly.  “Like how I’d made those girls feel.”  He looked away, not wanting her to look at him. 

“So you dumped her?”

“A few days later.  I realised I didn’t want to be popular.”  He smiled.  “I wanted… I dunno… something real… a connection… Probably sounds stupid.”

“No.”  Rae leaned closer to him, “no it doesn’t.”  He shrugged and shook his head, raising his fingers to gently stroke her hair.

“I’m sorry I were a prick.  I was still kinda changing when I met you.  So…”  She thought back to the pub, Finn stopping Archie from talking about the pool party.

“Where you a prick when you talked about me at the pool party?”  She asked, afraid to hear the answer.  He sighed and looked away pained.

“Do we havet’a talk about this?”

“Yes.”  Her chin quivered slightly so she gritted her teeth defiantly.

“Ok.”  He gritted his teeth in reply and looked everywhere but at her.  “I were prick about you.”  He said after a long pause. 

Rae felt herself shrinking away from him, not knowing whether to cross her arms over her breasts or her stomach.  She clenched her jaw, trying not to cry. 

“Fuck Rae, I’m sorry!”  Finn tried to move closer to her and she put her hand up for him to stay away.  He slumped back and watched her, his face showing his agony as he watched her struggle with what he’d said.  She took long, deep shuddering breath.

“What did you say?”

“I were mostly talking to Chop.  Archie don’t really talk about girls.  Never has.”

“Obviously.”  She tried to pretend that she was ok.

“We was talking about all the girls.  You and Izzy and Chloe.”

Rae felt a tear fall down her face. 

“Did you compare us?”

“A little.”

Rae couldn’t look at his face. 

“In what way.”

“We was talking about… um… tits.”  He ended softly. 

“Chop said that Chloe had the best tits.”

“Poor Izzy.”  Finn fidgeted and tried to move closer to her again.  “What did you say?”

“I said I liked yours the most cos I like big tits.”

Rae turned her face to him.

“What?”

“I said I liked your tits.  When you bent down, there were a lot of cleavage and… I said they’d be good to fuck.”

“Ok…”  Rae felt that things were not going as she had expected.  “What else?”  Finn bit the inside of his mouth and fidgeted again.

“I said it were always good to keep a big girl around cos they always got good big tits.”  He looked away ashamed.

“Right…”  Rae felt oddly pleased and also reminded of what Saul had said to her, about how he’d always wanted a piece of a big girl and that made her feel dirty in a bad way.  “Anything else?”

“Archie asked… if I’d date you.  I said no.”  He looked at her face, hoping she wouldn’t be too hurt.  He saw the tears and wanted to apologise, wanted to touch her, but she was keeping her distance.

“Because,” her voice was higher pitched than usual, filled with grief, “because I’m fat.”

“What?”  Finn asked, “No… cos I didn’t feel a connection with you.  I mostly felt pissed off at you.  You kept calling me a prick.  I mean I deserved it, but I didn’t like it.  It hurt.”  He lowered his eyes.  “Still does.”

“You didn’t feel a connection?”  Rae asked, her voice filled with disbelief that it wasn’t because she was fat.

“Yeah but I were wrong.  Archie were right; I already liked you then.  I just didn’t realise.”  He bit the skin around his nails, fretting, worried about the way she was staring off in disbelief.  “I’m sorry, what can I say to-”

“It’s ok.”  She turned back to him.

“No it’s not, I fetishized you.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I treated you like you were nought but a body.”  Finn answered, “it’s disgusting that I did that.  To you.  Me girl.  You deserve better.”

“At least you didn’t say I were fat and ugly… or that you’d like my tits on Chloe’s body.”

“I could never say those things about you.”

“You didn’t know me then.”

“Even back then Rae.”  He looked upset, “have people said those kinds of things to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Probably fit boys like me?”

“And fit girls like Stacey.”

“If you’d have come into my world when I were dating Stacey… I might have said that kinda stuff… and I hate that about myself.  I hate it so much.”

“We’ve both changed.”  She reached forward and stroked his face lovingly.

“I wish I’d never been that person Rae.”

“I think everyone has parts of themselves they hate.”  She kissed him softly and the tension began to leave his body.

“So you forgive me?”  He asked fearfully. 

“Nothing to forgive.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Halo’ – The Cure _

 

It was late morning before Finn sat at the kitchen table and Rae went to see what Archie and Izzy were cooking up. 

“We alright?”  Finn said as he sat down next to Chloe.

“Yeah”

“Good.  You like me sister Chlo.”

“Oh yeah?”  She mocked.

“Aye.  You matter to me.  Ok?  I wanna see you happy, deal?”  She tutted at him and rolled her eyes.

“Ok Finn.”  She ended with a genuine smile.  “I am sorry about last night.”

“S’alright.”  He shrugged.

“I needed to hear it.  Get me head on straight.  So, thanks.  I guess.”  Finn opened his mouth to reply but Chop came into the room wearing a kilt and holding 2 more.

“It’s time lads!”  He bellowed as Archie came out from the kitchen.

The boys ate their breakfast quickly and donned their kilts.

“No undies right?”  Chop said and Finn nodded his head amused.  Archie shook his head unimpressed.

“Archie?”

“Yes.”  He groaned.  Chop produced a football.

“Three man football.  Barefoot, in the snow.” 

A strange sort of masculinity took over then and three of them ran outside yelling, the girls watched them leave with mildly confused looks. 

“Well girls if either of you wanted to have children with your boy I think that chance just died.”  Chloe said as they walked to the windows to watch them running around frantically, the ball flying in between them. 

“Well then.”  Izzy turned to them, “who wants a cup of tea?”

_My god.  Look at Finn.  How did he not know that I thought he were a sex god?_

_He is clearly the king of horn._

_If they made pornos with him in them I would never stop masturbating._

“I think she’s fantasising about Finn again.”  Izzy said softly.

“What?’  Rae asked turning her face to the girls.

“You kinda sometimes do this thing where you look off and…”  Chloe shrugged.  “We figured you was fantasising about Finn every time you did it.”

“How often do I do it?”

“At least daily.”  Izzy nodded happily.

“I need a brew.”

 

 

“It was the smallest cock I’d ever seen.”  Chloe laughed and Izzy gave a scandalised look before joining in with Rae and Chloe laughing.  They sat at the outside dining table in heavy jackets with blankets and watched the boys run around in shirts and kilts. 

“As long as he knew how to use his tongue!” 

“You know Rae, he was really good at that.  I love getting head.”

“Yeah.”  Rae nodded her head appreciatively, “I like a man though that can make you cum with his fingers, his tongue and his cock…”

“There aren’t many of those about.”  Chloe shook her head.  “Why, is Finn…?” She nodded towards him.

“He’s amazing.  He makes me cum so much I think me insides are turning to jelly.”  Chloe and Izzy laughed.  “He fucks like a starving man who thinks his cock can find a burger up me snatch.”  Chloe opened her mouth wide in laughter and Izzy covered her mouth giggling.

“Holy Fuck!”  Chloe laughed until she started to cough.

“His cock is like magic!  It’s the perfect size – well above average ladies!  And it has this slight curve in it that make it rub all the right places inside.”

“Snipped or no?’  Chloe asked.

“Not.”

“I prefer that.”  Chloe answered.

“Me too, it’s more natural.”  Izzy agreed, “that’s what Chop says anyway.”

“Everything about his cock is so perfect they should make him make pornos.”

“No Rae his bits are just for you!”  Izzy laughed.

“His body is like some sort of fucking…”  She shook her head, a tragically horny expression on her face, “fucking…” another heaving breath, “there are no words.  He is a sex wizard.”  Rae said finally.  “He makes me scream every time.” 

“It’s so nice though when they take to time to really make your scream.”  Chloe agreed.  “Don’t you agree Izzy?”  Chloe asked and Rae turned her eyes to Izzy who stared back at them blankly.  She took a sip of her tea and looked first at Rae and then at Chloe.

“I still don’t really know what an orgasm is.”  She said finally.  Rae tried to stop her jaw from dropping but she felt herself turning to look at Chloe and knew they both had the same stunned, opened-mouthed expression.

“Has Chop never made you scream?’  Chloe hissed at her amazed.

“Um…” Izzy looked perplexed and worried. 

“Has he gone down?”  Rae asked amazed.

“Well yes…”

“And did you get… a kind of… electricity in your lady bits that went through your whole body and made you shake?”  Rae tried to explain how an orgasm felt to her. 

“No.”  Izzy shook her head and looked at both of them doubtfully, “I mean it were nice.  Our sex is always really nice.  But… I don’t think I’ve ever orgasmed.  I mean but how would I know if I had?  How did you know?”  She looked first at Chloe and then at Rae.

“Trust me, you’d know if you had.”  Rae said, her mouth numb with shock. 

“Would I?’  Her eyes turned to Chloe.

“Yeah.”  Chloe back Rae up.

“Well… what do I do?’  Izzy asked.

“Well.”  Rae began, “There’s two things…”

“Hey!”  Finn jogged up and kissed Rae on the neck.  “I think me toes are gonna freeze off!”

“Fuck your toes, me bollocks are freezing!”  Archie came over and cupped his nuts as he sat down. 

Chop joined them.

“Ok.  I acknowledge that it might not have been a good idea.”

“I vote for more movies and a fucking heater.”  Archie said.

“I second.”  Finn added starting to shiver.

“I third and motion passed.”  Rae added and they gathered the tea set before heading inside. 

 

 

Rae and Finn had been snuggling in front of the TV with everyone else when Finn had traced the words;

_I want you…_

_Now._

On Rae’s leg. 

They had had excused themselves, to the mocking of Chop, and raced up the stairs.  He had slammed her into the wall and kissed her fervently, before pushing her onto the bed and frantically pulling down her pants.  He then spent a good long time licking her slowly and purposefully, Rae’s orgasm slowly building until it exploded out of her with loud cries of ecstasy.

Downstairs four sets of eyes turned towards the stairs.

“Bloody hell.”  Izzy whispered to herself as Chop turned up the TV. 

Having learned from the first time he gave her multiple orgasms, Finn was quick to slide into her before she stopped shuddering from the first orgasm. 

“God you’re so good Finn!”  She moaned as her body began to peak for a second orgasm. 

They had only been having sex twice a day since the gang arrived, the morning quickie and the night time slow, smouldering fuck.  Finn seemed to be particularly keen to make the evening sex last as long as possible, and Rae was not complaining. 

When he did cum he often stayed inside of her and kissed her mouth for a long while before they headed to the shower or spa where they would inevitably talk and tease each other happily.

“Can blokes have multiple orgasms?” 

“I dunno?”  Finn shrugged.  “Probably not.”

“Seems unfair that I can and you can’t.”  Finn thought about it for a moment.

“Periods.”  He answered.

“Oh yeah.”  She agreed.  He grinned and they kissed as they slowly soaped each other’s bodies.  “But I do feel that I should make sure.  I want’a be as good at sex as you are.”

“Don’t worry, you’re doing fine.”  His face was lit up and his eyes never left her face. 

“Yeah?”

“Oh yes.”  They kissed and Rae felt happy, content.  She knew that she could talk to Finn about this…

“Finn.”  She said softly, as if broaching a delicate topic.  “Do you and Chop still talk about sex and girls and stuff?”  She felt him grow tense, remembering the discussion in the spa from the other night. 

“I suppose.” 

“What were your last conversation like?”  Finn thought back to the last time he and Chop had talked about sex.

“He asked if I’d got in you knickers yet.  And I said not yet.  And I whined about that a bit.”  He laughed. 

“You cheeky fucker!”  She admonished and he laughed more. 

“But you haven’t talked since then.”  She asked when he finished laughing. 

“Not really.  I mean, I guess in general terms.”

“So not like… in detail?”

“Not really.  It’d be weird wouldn’t it?  I don’t wanna know what Izzy does!  She like me sister!”

“Right.”  She answered, her thoughts clearly not where his were.

“Your head’s left me behind again girl.” 

“Can I ask you to talk to Chop about sex?”  Finn looked momentarily stunned and then amused.

“What do you want me to say?  Rae Earl’s the best fuck I ever had?”

“No… well yes… but after that… maybe you can… I dunno… tell him how to do it… properly.”  Finn stared at her expectant face blankly.

“Tell Chop…”

“How to have sex.”  Rae said as if it were both an extremely obvious and easy task she were asking of him. 

“Tell Chop how to have sex.”  Finn repeated. 

“Properly.  Yes.”  She clarified. 

“Why would I do that?”

“Because he don’t make Izzy scream.”

“Oh fuck Rae, I don’t wanna know this!”  Finn looked away with a pained expression of utter distaste on his face. 

“Yeah but Izzy should be made to scream don’t you think?”  She asked matter-of-factly. 

“I don’t know!”  He looked at bewildered and exasperated, “It’s not my job to make sure Izzy screams.  I’ve got you to take care of and that does me very nicely thank you.”

“Oh come on Finn!”

“It’s not like we even talk in that much detail!”

“Yeah but maybe you just talk about technique, like just boys talking shite or something.  And you just slip it in there.”

“Just slip it in there?”  He shook his head at her and then dawning realisation spread across Finn’s face, “Wait… Do you girls talk about it in that much detail?”

“What?”  Rae seeing the look of horror on his face, pretended shock.  “No!”  Outrage even.

_He makes me cum so much I think me insides are turning to jelly_

_He fucks like a starving man who thinks his cock can find a burger up me snatch_

_His cock is_ _the perfect size – well above average ladies!  And it has this slight curve in it that make it rub all the right places inside – it’s so perfect they should make him make pornos_

_He makes me scream every time_

“Nooooooo.”  Rae shook her head at him as if her were crazy to think that way, “why would you think that?”  She asked awkwardly.

“Well… well how d’you know Chop don’t make Izzy scream?”

“Um… we was just talking in general terms… and it managed to come up in general conversation.”  Rae lied. 

“Came up in general conversation?” 

“Yep.”  She looked everywhere but his face.

“Just slipped in there hey?”

“That’s right.”

“How much detail do you girls talk in?”  Finn asked, not buying it.

“Not that much.  I mean not more than they already knew – which is that you make me scream.”  Rae pretended to concede valuable information and Finn sighed, exasperated.

“Is that all?” 

_He fucks like a starving man who thinks his cock can find a burger up me snatch_

_His cock is_ _the perfect size – well above average ladies!  And it has this slight curve..._

“Yep.”  She looked at the wall and tried to make it seem like she was telling the truth. 

“Rae?”  Finn looked at her while she attempted to look innocent.

“What?”

“How much detail did you go into?”

“Not much!”  She answered as if she were being unfairly persecuted.

“What exactly did you say?”  Finn asked, beginning to worry.

“I just said you have a nice cock and you make me scream.”  Finn blushed and looked away.

“And that were to Chloe and Izzy?”

“Yes.”

“Oh shit Rae!”  He shook his head, “I don’t want them to know that!” 

“Well everyone already knows you make me scream so…”  She shook her head at him as if it were no big deal…

“That’s all you said?”

“Why don’t you trust me Finn?”

“Cos I know how you like to bang on!”  He said serious, but the look on her face made him crack into a smile.  “Fuck Rae,” He smiled and stroked her cheek, “how much did you really tell them?”

“Ok, maybe a little more than you would have liked… but only a little!  And it’s just cos you’re so good that I have speak about it or me insides’ll burst.”  He shook his head not knowing how to respond so he took her into his arms, kissed her forehead and groaned. 

“I’m not gonna be able to look at either of ‘em.”

“Don’t be daft.  Girls talk about this stuff all the time, it’s no big deal.”  He knew he should be angry or even upset at all, but all he could do was helplessly love her. 

“Alright.”  He gave in.

“So you’ll talk to Chop.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Oh come on!”

“No Rae.  I won’t do it!  It’d be too weird!”

“Well at least think about it.”

“Think about it?  I don’t want this conversation stewing in my brain.”

“Please?”

“Fine.  If it’ll shut you up?”

“It’ll shut me up.  For now.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you.”  She gave him her best impish smile and kissed his lips triumphantly. 

_Ok, maybe it took Finn a little while to look Chloe and Izzy in the eye again, but he got over it and everything was fine!_

_But I must learn to keep me mouth shut about his cock._

_Impossible._

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Me And A Gun’ by Tori Amos. _

 

For their last night in Sutherland the gang went to the local village pub.  It was a rowdy Friday night and the locals were in high spirits. 

Chop announced that he’d be shouting the gang’s drinks for the night and the general consensus was that Chop was a very decent fellow.

They organised the drive back, Chop was staying in Sutherland for Christmas, Finn and Rae were driving back in her car and Archie Chloe and Izzy would go in Archie’s car.  Archie intended to do the ten hours on one long day, but Finn decided that he and Rae would do two 5 hour days, getting them home on the 22nd of December. 

“I’m pretty excited for Christmas.”  Izzy said before taking a big sip of her beer.

“You know, I don’t even know if we’re celebrating it anymore.”  Rae looked perplexed. 

“Why?”  Finn turned to her.

“Well me mum converted to Islam, and I don’t think they do Christmas do they?”

“But you didn’t convert, so you should do it.”  Finn responded.

“I guess I’ll have to see what’s happening.”

“Come to my place if you need to ok?”  He offered.

“D’you reckon your dad’ll be ok with that?”

“Yeah, he’ll be fine.” 

“And if he’s not you could always come round to my place.”  Archie put in.

“Or mine.”  Chloe added. 

“I’d say mine too, but we’re going away for Christmas.”  Izzy apologised.

“Oh that’s alright Izzy!” 

“Oh hey Chloe, that guy over there is having a look at you!”  Izzy nodded towards a table of fit lads in the corner, she was not nearly as subtle as she thought she was and two of them nodded back to her. 

“I don’t really care Iz.”  Chloe said, but looked anyway and one of them blew her a kiss.  She turned away without responding.  Archie looked over.

“One of them’s checking out Rae.”  He commented and Finn looked over.

“Someone put a fucking muzzle on Finn!”  Chop joked as Finn put a possessive arm around Rae.

“He’s not checking me out Archie.”  Rae shook her head without even looking at the table of lads.

“Yes he fucking was.”  Finn responded and pulled her closer.  She rolled her eyes at him and scooted closer happy for the closeness. 

“Let me know if any of ‘em looks at Izzy, I’ll go ‘Finn’ on ‘em.”  Chop laughed as he put an arm around Izzy and Finn shot him a glare.

The night wore on but the jokes were good and the beer was free, for everyone but Chop, so they stayed later than they had intended.

“Better head out then.”  Archie said eventually after he looked at his watch and the others moaned. 

“I don’t want this week to be over.”  Izzy voiced their thoughts. 

They started to head towards the door, Chloe and Rae in the lead, chatting about getting together after Christmas.  The lad that had been looking at Chloe reached out as they went past and grabbed her hand. 

“Hey pretty lady.”  He said as he stood up.

“Don’t touch me.”  Chloe’s voice shook and she stepped back.  Rae turned to see the man put his hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t be like th-” He started to say.

“DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME!”  Chloe shrieked and pushed him as hard as she could, “DON’T YOU EVER FUCKING TOUCH ME!”  Rae put herself between the guy and Chloe.

“Hey, it’s alright, we’re cool.  No one’s touching you now Chlo.”  She tried to make eye contact with Chloe.

“The fuck is wrong with that psycho?’  The guy spat at her, the phlegm landing on Rae and Chloe’s arms.  “Fucking bitch!”

“Hey fuck off!”  Archie yelled back and several men started to stand.

“Don’t fucking look at her!”  Chop was yelling at the crowd staring.

“Get me out of here.  Get me out of here!”  Chloe was sobbing, but she couldn’t move, she was shaking too hard, and Rae wasn’t sure she could get Chloe out safely while all around them men were posturing and swearing.  Rae saw the look of rage coming over Finn’s face as he saw the spit on her arm.

“Finn!”  She yelled at him and his eyes snapped to her, “I need you!  Get Chloe!”  He nodded and scooped Chloe up as Rae led the way through the gathering crowd.  Chop, Izzy and Archie followed them closely. 

“Put me down!  Don’t touch me!”  She started to yell as she struggled out of Finn’s arms.  “Don’t touch me.”  She sobbed and Rae took her by the arms and moved her off the road. 

“Put your hands on something solid Chloe.”  Rae said as the gang kept an eye on the people who had spilled out of the pub after them.  “Put your hands on something solid.” 

“I don’t want him to touch me Rae, please don’t let him touch me.  Don’t touch me.  Don’t touch me.  Don’t touch me.”  She was sobbing frantically.

“Chloe, where are you?”  She asked and shot a look at Finn and the rest of the gang who all looked on horrified.

“He won’t stop.  He won’t stop. He won’t stop.”  She whimpered.

“It’s ok.  You feel the wall.  It’s real.  It’s solid.  It’s here with me.  And he’s not here.”  Chloe’s sobs echoed through the silent street as Rae tried to talk her down. 

“What’s happening?”  Chop asked softly and Izzy gave him a sign to be quiet.  Archie turned back to look at the pub patrons, staring on with curiosity. 

“What are you feeling Chloe.”  Rae kept her voice low and quiet, soothing, calm. 

“His…”

“What emotion?”

She sobbed for a moment, her breath fast and ragged.

“F… fear.”  She stuttered.  The sobs starting to quieten down.  

“Ok.  And what’s your body doing?” 

“Um… tense… shaking…” 

“Alright.  And this is happening because you’re remembering… him…”  Chloe started to sob louder again as she nodded her head.

“Ok, look around, not that way,” she turned Chloe’s back to the people staring at her “look around right now, what do you see?”  Rae rubbed her back gently.

“A stone cobble road… parked cars… a cat.”  She pointed half-heartedly at a cat running from one gutter to another. 

“And what’s the date?”

“20th of December.”  Chloe breath was slowing down, her voice becoming more steady.

“So you know what he did, isn’t happening right now.”  Chloe nodded her head. 

“He’s not here.”  She whispered.

“No he’s not.  I’m here.”  Chloe threw her arms around Rae and cried.  Rae looked back at the gang and saw the same fear, concern and outrage on their faces. 

Something very bad had happened to Chloe, she could see this in the boy’s eyes. 

But as she turned to Izzy, she saw the same knowledge there that she felt in her own eyes. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘The Daughter Of A Child’ by The Auteurs _

 

Rae held her tight, worrying, not wanting to let her go.  She giggled and finally Rae had to stop. 

“I’m fine Rae!”  Chloe said with a huge sunny grin.  “I just had too much drink.”  She got into the car, “I’ll see you after Christmas, yeah?”

“Alright Chlo.”

“I’ll look after her.”  Archie gave Rae a hug and called after Izzy, who was still kissing Chop in between huge yawns. 

“I get back on the 29th!”  She kissed him.

“I’ll be waiting for you.”  He said lustily and she giggled before jumping in the back seat. 

Rae, Finn and Chop watched the car until it was out of sight and turned back to the house.

“What time you fuckers leaving?”

“In about an hour or two.  Alright?”  Finn answered lighting a cigarette.

“Alright.”  Chop agreed, “Hey… what happened with Chlo last night?  She seems fine today.”  Both boys turned their eyes to Rae who sighed internally.

“Um.  I think it were a panic attack.”  She answered as generally as she could, not wanting to go into the specifics 

“You ever had them?”  Chop asked, “I mean cos you talked Chloe around pretty good.”

“She actually reminded me of an old friend who didn’t liked to be touched.”  Rae sad sadly, “Yeah Chop, I’ve had panic attacks.”

He nodded his head considering.

“But our little Rae-Rae’s alright now?”  His eyes were filled with worry.

“As right as I can be Chop.”  Finn looked at her sympathetically and put his arm around her.  Chop looked concerned about everything but pocketed his hands and tried to brush it off.

 

 

One shag, three suitcases and 2 hours later Rae stood outside holding her diamond as it nestled on her neck and looking up at the house.  She really didn’t want to go.  She turned to run her hand along the body of her car.  At least she had something to look forward to.  Finn said he’d teach her to drive. 

Chop and Finn chest bumped and Chop turned to Rae and gave her a typically awkward Chop hug with a kiss on the cheek. 

“I’ll see you two on the 27th right?”

“At the Chippy.”  Finn confirmed and then turned to Rae, “you wanna drive?”

“Not yet, you go first.”  She answered anxiously. 

“Alright.” 

Driving through the Scottish countryside, Rae’s mind turned to thoughts of Chloe.  The hand she had rested on Finn’s started to fidget and he looked at her momentarily.

“Your mind working overtime again?”  He smiled knowingly at her before focussing on the road again.

“Just trying to think which one of those bastards did it to her.”

“Chloe?”

“I mean any one of those guys could have done.  I keep thinking ‘obviously Rae, it’s Ian’ but I wouldn’t put it past Saul, that fucking shit-stain, and she mentioned fooling around with Ben and something about the way she said it makes me thinking it weren’t fooling around…”

“What happened to her?” 

“Are you serious?”

“Well something bad… she’s right cut up about it…”  Rae’s face was a picture of disbelief and Finn felt self-conscious.

“Well don’t look at me like that Chop and Archie don’t know either.”  He said defensively, “Although… Archie and I think that maybe…” He bit the inside of his mouth, “maybe she were raped?”  He shrugged at how stupid his theory was and then continued, “you know but Chop said that that would never happen to Chloe so… I dunno.”

“Why wouldn’t it happen to Chloe?” 

“Well Chop said that kind of thing only happens to certain types of girls and Chloe isn’t one of those girls.”

“Certain types of girls?”  She felt her anger rising, “Right.  And am I one of those types of girls then?”  Finn could tell how angry she was and tried to salvage the situation.

“No!  No it were-”

“Cos it’s nearly happened to me…” She thought on it for a moment and added, “more than once.  What do you think that guy in the pub would have done if you hadn’t been there? Or if me and him’d been alone?  Did it look like he cared I were saying no?”  Finn calmly pulled the car to the side of the road and after keeping his eyes forward for a moment he turned to her.

“More than once?”  His face was filled with concern, and shame at what he’d said before.  Rae looked away not wanting to talk about it.

“Yeah.”  She said eventually.

“Are you alright?  What happened?”

“I’m fine.  Nothing happened.”

“Then why won’t you look at me?”  She turned her eyes to him, “tell me what happened?”

“I were at a party with Chlo and them bunch’a knob heads and I had to go to the toilet, I were pretty wasted… and Saul…”

“He’s the guy that put his arm around you at the carnival.”  Finn jutted his jaw slowly out, showing his rising aggression.  She nodded.

“He came in and I weren’t expecting it.  And he told me that I were sexy and stuff like that.  And when I turned to wash me hands, he touched me.”  Suddenly the fear of that moment came back to Rae and she had to take a deep breath.

“Touched you where?”  Finn’s voice was unnaturally calm and even.

“On the arse, but like right under… his fingers were right on me… but I had clothes on.  And I tried to stop him and…” The images flashed in her mind fast and she couldn’t grab hold of any one of them, “I dunno he said something about wanting a big girl and he locked the door when I told him no.”  Finn clenched his jaw and looked out at the road as Rae continued, “um… he got his dick out and told me he were hard for me and told me to touch it.  I think I told him I’d scream if he touched me again and then… then I left the room.”  Rae hadn’t let herself think about since it had happened, she felt her whole body shaking.  “It were so close though.  I think the only reason he let me go, were that he were too drunk to proper stop me, you know?  I think if he’d been more sober… he just would’a covered me mouth and done it.”  She looked over at Finn.  He scratched his ear stiffly, his hands shaking as they moved.  He swallowed, kept his eyes ahead.  Suddenly Rae got worried that she was one of those girls, that he wouldn’t want her anymore. 

“Say something.”  She said after a long silence.

“I’m sorry.”  He breathed.  “I were trying to stop the urge to kill something.  And I were trying to think of something that would be worth saying right now.  Nothing I can think of seems right.”

“Just say what’s in your head.”

“I’m gonna kill that guy.”  He paused, his eyes searching for something that he couldn’t grasp, “And I hate myself for not just comforting you, but instead wanting to find him and kill him.  So he’ll never touch you again.”

“You don’t think I’m o’those girls, do you?”  Rae asked, her voice fragile and unsure.

“What?”  Finn asked, his face filled with outrage.

“It almost happened twice to me… maybe I’m doing something?  Maybe I’m… what Chop said…”

“No!  No!  Fuck Chop…”  He shook his head that he’d ever believed for a second something Chop said about girls.  “There’s no such thing as that kind o’ girl.”  He said after a moment of self-berating.  “Chop knows nought about girls!”  He said to her worried face.  “We both know that.”  They sat in silence for a moment, Finn’s fingers twitching as he bit the inside of his mouth and tried to not stare at her. 

“Can I touch you?”  He asked after a moment.

“You what?”

“It’s just Chloe didn’t want to be touched and… I wantta hold you.”  She motioned for him to hug her and he leaned over the gear box awkwardly and put his arms around her.  “I’m sorry.”  He whispered in her ear.  His voice, those words, it unlocked something in her and she started to cry.  She hadn’t let herself cry about Saul, about the way he’d touched her, how afraid she’d been when he locked the door.

“His was the first cock I saw in real life.”  Rae said numbly, her tears dripping onto Finn’s shirt.  Finn’s jaw clenched again and his nostrils flared.

“I’m gonna kill him.”  He said simply. 

“No don’t.”  Rae said softly.  “Don’t want you to go to jail.”  She smiled weakly and he returned the same smile before kissing her, gently, but with his arms wrapped around her protectively. 

They stayed like that for some time.

“Can I try driving?”  Rae asked softly.

“Yeah.”  Finn started to get out.

“Not yet!”  Rae held up her shaking hands, “but maybe after lunch?”

_Saying goodbye after that wonderful week was easily one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.  I told Finn to keep me car at his place for now since I can’t drive it yet and he had an actual garage space so it wouldn’t be outside all the time.  We sat in the backseat and kissed for ages, not wanting him to have to drive away.  Oh he said so many sweet things to me about how he’d miss waking up next to me, how he liked sleeping with me in his arms.  My room just seems kind of empty now.  There’s no Finn beside me in the bed as I write this.  I feel so lonely.  Even though I know I’ll be seeing him again tomorrow.  I don’t want to spend the night alone._

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Pretty On The Inside’ by Hole _

 

_At least at home I could finally get my weight loss program back on track!  Time for an early morning jog._

Rae looked at the clock.  8am.

_Ok… a morning jog._

Rae jogged down the stairs feeling her stomach grumble.  She was starting to get used to that. 

She walked into the lounge room to see her mum, crying, watching Aiesha sleep.  She stopped, surprised and then slowly walked into the room.

“Alright mum?”  Linda looked up and quickly wiped her tears.

“Yeah, just tired you know?”  Rae nodded, “your boy’s at it again.”  Linda held up a box of chocolates the card with her name and the heart on it, still attached. 

“Oh Finn.”  Rae smiled as she took them.

“They were on the doorstep this morning.”  Rae opened the box and smelled the chocolate slowly, taking it all in, before sighing wistfully and handing them back to her mum.

“You can have them.  I’m trying to lose weight.” 

“Alright.”  Linda answered distractedly. 

“Off for a jog!”  Rae said cheerily as she left the house.

 

_The worst thing was, that after 2 weeks of starving myself and an hour of jogging today, my weight hadn’t changed one bit._

_Every time I looked in the mirror I saw a body that just needed shrinking, just a little.  I just want to take up less space.  I want his hands to take less time to travel from one side to the other side of me._

_I am fine.  I am perfect…_

_I am perfect…_

_I’d just be more perfect if I were smaller._

 

 

 

 

_ ‘I Want You’ by Elvis Costello _

 

_Hello, hello.  What a surprise._

_Didn’t think I’d see you about Rae Earl._

Rae was sitting on the swing looking down at a CD.  She swung back and forth slightly.  He was struck with the sudden, violent urge to go to her. 

But he stilled that urge and watched her.

_Smiling.  She’s sitting there smiling._

_You’ve had enough fun Rae.  You don’t get to just forget me._

_You’re on a high now, but it’ll crash and you’ll remember what a fuck up you really are._

He walked to her slowly, quietly and sat on the swing next to her.  She looked up, her face smiling, but it dropped a little when she saw him.

_Don’t try and cover it.  I saw that._

“Rae.”

“Hi Liam.”  She stuffed the CD in her bag and turned, smiling to him.

“I haven’t seen you around.”  He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, blowing smoke in her direction on each exhale. 

“Yeah, I stopped group.  What have you been up to?”

“Nothing.  You?”  Rae started to feel uneasy about the way Liam was looking at her. 

“Not much, you know.”  She looked ahead while Liam kept his eyes trained on her face. 

“Weren’t it your birthday recently?”  His face was a fixed mask that Rae couldn’t read.  She fidgeted uncomfortably. 

“Yeah.”

“Not sweet 16 anymore.”

“I guess not.”  She tried to smile but it fell dead when she saw his intense stare.  “So I think I might go, and we can chat later, yeah?”  She started to get up and Liam matched her, flicking his cigarette away in the same movement.  His eyes never leaving her face. 

“I’ll walk you there.”

“I’m going to meet up with Finn.”

“Finn.”  His left eyelid twitched and Rae felt herself backing up slowly. 

“Yeah.  Sorry but I don’t need you to walk me there.  But thanks for the offer, mate.” 

“You two dating again.”  His eyes narrowed slightly and Rae tried to ignore the fear rising in her stomach.

“Yes we are.  I’m real happy Liam.”

“Why?”

“I just am.  Can’t explain happiness, can you?”

“I meant why are you with him?”

“Because-” 

Liam’s eyes were ablaze with rage, and Rae grew more afraid as he closed in on her. 

“There’s no reason for you to go out with him.”  He slowly raised his hand to her face and stroked her cheek, fondly. 

“Liam…  Don’t touch me” 

Liam laughed.

“Don’t touch you!”  He chuckled, “Been there, done you…”

“Yeah well, that’s in the past Liam, we’re just mates now.”  She answered stridently. 

“No.  No Rae.  You belong to me.  You won’t drop your standards to be with that motherfucker.  Will you Rae?”

“Liam…”  Rae couldn’t fathom the icy fire in his eyes and it stopped her voice in her throat. 

“I love you.”  He grabbed her by the head and slammed his lips against hers.  Rae struggled against him and managed to turn her head and yell.

“LIAM!”  She pushed him hard and backed away hurriedly, slamming herself into a tree.  She felt her spine and the back of her head sing out in pain, her breath punched out of her by the force of her hit.  But he was there, his body inches from hers.

“Tell me about it Rae.”

“STOP IT LIAM!”  But he put a hand over her mouth.

“Shhhh.”  He soothed and stroked her hair with the other hand. 

“Tell me about him.”  He whispered to her, his face just millimetres from hers, Rae turned her eyes away.

_She’s so pretty when she scared._

“Shhh… it’s ok Rae, I won’t hurt you.  Tell me about Finn.  Tell me he fucks you better than I did.”  He let go of her mouth and snaked his hand down her body, “tell me how he touches you.  Did you suck his dick?”  He put his mouth to her ear, “does he eat your tight cunt?”  Rae turned her face to his.

“Get off me Liam.”  She hissed angrily, “You’re me mate, I don’t know what’s happening with you, but-” tears made her voice shake and crack. 

“Oh no Rae Earl.  I’m more than your mate, aren’t I?  I know all about you, don’t I?”  She looked away, searching the surroundings for help.  He dug his fingers into her chin, forcing her face to look at him.  “Does he know what you’re like when you binge eat Rae?  Does he know how fucked up you really are?  How you scratch your skin?  Does he know what’s going on in your head, like I do?  Or does he just know you with his dick?”

“Fuck off Liam!”  Rae tried to turn her head away and Liam let her.

“Nah Rae,” he put his lips to her ear again, “he don’t know you, he’s just guessing.  I know you.”

“No you don’t!”  She spat at him, “if you did, you wouldn’t-“

“Does he let you take your clothes off?  Does he lie and tell you that you’re beautiful?”

Rae lowered her eyes and tears slipped down her cheeks.

“Stop it.”

“Do you think that cos he undresses you that he wants you like I do?”  He moved closer.  “You think cos he fucks you, that he gets you?  You’re fucking daft if you think he understands Rae, he don’t.  No one understands people like us.”

“Finn understands me...”  Her voice sounded weak, small, fragile.

He caressed her face and carefully swept some hair out of her eyes.

“Careful darlin’ – you’re falling into a lie.  He don’t know you like I do.  He don’t love you like I do.”

“You don’t love me.”  She gritted her teeth against the thoughts entering her mind,

“No more of this Rae.”  He straightened his spine, drawing himself to his full height, “you belong with me.”

“No.”  She tried to sound strong, but her voice sounded small and fragile.

“I can’t live without you Rae.  D’you think Finn can live without you… d’you think he won’t just go get another girl when you inevitably break up… go get himself a THIN girl won’t he?  Oh wait – he already did that.”

Rae squeezed her eyes shut against the tears.

“Truth hurts don’t it?  But it’s better that way.  It’s clear, it’s real.  You don’t belong in his world Rae.  You belong in mine.”  He leaned into kiss her again and she struggled against him.

_She’s breaking in front of me._

_Why do you do shit like this Liam?_

_Because he took her._

_From me._

Liam felt a hand close around his shoulder and yank him backwards.

“Ah, here he is!”  Liam laughed, “We was just talking about you.  Weren’t we Rae?”

“What’s going on?”  Finn turned his eyes to Rae.

“You know, it just must kill you that I got there before you.”  Liam smiled sadistically at Finn.  “Popped that tight little cherry, didn’t I?”  Contempt and anger crept into Finn’s face as he turned his eyes to Liam.  “I’m still inside her.”  He smirked.

“What?”  Finn asked dangerously.

“Rae, c’mon pet, be honest, wouldn’t you rather be sucking my dick than his?”

Without warning Finn slammed his fist into Liam’s jaw.  Liam jolted back and landed on his arse, Finn standing over him.  The sound of Liam laughing uproariously through his bloodied mouth filled the silence.

“You know, she’s more like me than you.”  He kept laughing. 

Finn looked at Rae momentarily and then turned and left. 

 

 

“Finn!”  She ran after him but he kept going, “FINN!”  He was halfway down the next street before he turned on her

“What the fuck were you doing with him?” 

“Nothing!”

“It didn’t look like nothing.”

“Well maybe you need to check your fucking eyes!”

“Did you fuck him?”

“What the fuck?”

“Did you fuck him Rae?”

“Like you fucked Olivia?”

“Hey you dumped me – you don’t get to tell me how I should handle that!”

“No, you’re right, you should handle it by fucking some skinny bitch!”

“What are you even talking about?”

“You don’t like my body, you don’t say anything nice about it.”

“I don’t say anything about it cos I don’t want’a make you self-conscious!”

“Oh bollocks!”

“Bollocks?  Do you have any idea how hard it is to watch what I say all the time?”

“Right, so go back to Olivia.  She seems much easier.”

“Why are you so caught up on Olivia?”

“Why’d you get another girlfriend so quickly?”

“I were single I could do whatever I wanted!”

“Or whoever you wanted.”

“Yeah, that’s what it’s like when you’re single.”

“Yeah maybe for you, but you know what I did when we were apart?”

“Fucked Liam, made him cheat on his girlfriend.”

“Fuck you!”

“Why d’you even like him?  Oh that’s right – cos he just gets you!”

“Yeah.  Yeah that’s right.” 

“Right.  Cos I don’t?”

“That’s not what I’m saying!”

“How d’you even meet him?”

“At group therapy.”

“Right… so he’s just like you then.”

“Yeah.  Yeah we’re both fucked up.”

“No Rae, this is fucked up.”

“You know what Finn, maybe I don’t belong in your world.  I’m just not perfect enough for you am I?  I got too much shit.  And you can’t handle it.”

“You’re right.  I’m not fucked up enough to understand you.  I don’t belong in the fucked world of Rae Earl cos I’m not fucking mental enough!”

“This were a mistake.”

“Yeah.”

“We shouldn’t of got back together.  We’re both too fucked up for this.  All we do is hurt each other.” 

“Fine then.  It’s over!”

“Yeah.  Cos I’m done with this shit.”  Rae regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth.  But it was too late, she turned from him, trying not to cry and fled. 

Finn turned and continued to walk home. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Swallowed’ by Bush _

Linda didn’t need to ask what had happened.

She knew.

An hour ago Rae had stumbled into the house in tears. 

Linda held her, stroked her hair and made soothing sounds. 

A long while later the sobbing stopped, and silent tears snailed down her cheeks.

“I thought he loved me mum.”  Her small vulnerable voice broke Linda’s heart.

“Oh Rae, I thought he did too, pet.”  Linda kissed the top of Rae’s head and rocked her gently.

“I have to give back the necklace.”

“Sure we can’t just sell it?” 

“It’s his Nan’s.  It belongs in his family.” 

She got up and walked listlessly up the stairs to her room. 

Her still unpacked bags from their time in Sutherland lay in the corner.  She saw a shirt of his scrunched under the bed and a sob escaped her.  She went to the bed and picked it up, putting the shirt to her face so she could smell him.

_It felt like the world had swallowed me and I’d ended up in a place where there no happiness, no light, no goodness._

_We hadn’t even made it to a month together this time.  It’s like the fire burned too bright between us and we burned ourselves out.  We’d end up killing each other if we kept going.  It was over between us.  Truly over._

Rae sat on the floor, Finn’s shirt in her hands and wept. 

 

 

***

 

 

Finn walked angrily.  He knew where he was going.  But he didn’t know what would happen when he got there. 

His mind was a screeching cacophony of noise.  The argument played out in his head over and over. 

 

_“Right… so he’s just like you then.”_

_“Yeah.  Yeah we’re both fucked up.”_

_“No Rae, this is fucked up.”_

_“You know what Finn, maybe I don’t belong in your world.  I’m just not perfect enough for you am I?  I got too much shit.  And you can’t handle it.”_

_“You’re right.  I’m not fucked up enough to understand you.  I don’t belong in the fucked world of Rae Earl cos I’m not fucking mental enough!”_

_“This were a mistake.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“We shouldn’t of got back together.  We’re both too fucked up for this.  All we do is hurt each other.”_

 

Tears scorched his cheeks and he scratched at his face to stop them. 

_I don’t want to feel this.  I don’t wanna feel nothing._

He started to run.   He ran until he was exhausted, and had left Stamford’s boundaries behind.

He looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings and let himself start to cry, but it lasted only a few moments before he pushed it back down and let it burn a hole through his gut. 

He turned and walked back into town, still knowing where he intended to go. 

A few hours later he knocked on the door, fidgeting self-consciously, but staring purposefully at the door, as he heard footsteps within and saw the door swing inwards.

“What are you doing on my doorstep again Finn Nelson?”  Elsa drew heavily on her cigarette and looked at the boy.  His eyes red and angry.

“Can I come in?” 

She blew smoke out and looked up and down the road.

“Alright.”

Finn entered the house and turned to look at her, his hollow eyes crawling up her body and resting on her face.

“And I didn’t come to talk.” 

 

 

 

Episode 3 will feature Janice, a character I created in a previous fanfic:

<http://fanningon.tumblr.com/post/80157324096/rinn-fanfic-starts-with-finns-perspective-while-in>

For the purposes of my Season 3 fanfic, Finn and Janice met in the same circumstances as described in this fanfic but he didn’t go back to Stamford that night; he was letting everything they talked about mull around in his head instead. 


	3. Chapter 3 - 1997

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the third part of an 8 part season 3 fanfic.
> 
> If you can, read with the suggested music.
> 
> cheers m'dears

 

_ ‘Grind’ by Alice In Chains _

 

“Can I come in?” 

She blew smoke out and looked up and down the road.

“Alright.”

Finn entered the house and turned to look at her, his hollow eyes crawling up her body and resting on her face.

“And I didn’t come to talk.” 

Elsa closed the door and instantly he slammed her into it, his mouth angry and insistent found hers and kissed her passionately, his body pressing against hers, pinning her to the door.  There was a volcanic fire between them, the fury of a hurricane at sea, an electrical storm of energy swirled around them.  It was Finn’s rage and Elsa’s normal state of sexuality mingling.

Elsa felt her body responding and kissed him heatedly until her senses returned and she gently pushed him away.  She sighed appreciatively. 

“Alright Finn.”  She cleared her throat, and shook her head in admiration of him.  He was furious, lusty and determined.  He pushed her back into the door again, his hands going up to her breasts, firmly squeezing them, a groan of appreciation leaving his mouth before he crushed her mouth with his again, the kiss long and hard, but she stopped him again, and again had to shake her head.  She sighed internally and looked up at his angry, lustful face. 

“Bloody hell.”  She laughed, “was not expecting that.”  She held out her hand to him.  “Come on.”  He looked at her proffered hand and gave her a dirty smirk before taking it.  She led him deeper into her house, stopping at the door to the spare bedroom.

“Sleep it off boy.”  She nodded at the spare bed and started to walk away, still smiling, without looking at his confused and frustrated face.

“But I wanna fuck.”  He called after her aggressively.

“Doesn’t mean it’ll happen.”  She answered, still in good humour. 

“Why?”

“Just get some sleep Finn.”

“Well I’ll sleep with the door open, in nought but me skin.  You change your mind, you can come in and ride me.”  Her eyes narrowed, the electricity between them becoming moody and dangerous.  She turned back to him, walking slowly down the hallway.

“Oh Finn,” she stood centimetres from him, “you wouldn’t really know what to do with me.  Boy.”  She ended pointedly before turning and walking away.  “Now sleep.”  She said without looking back, her good mood spent. 

Finn paced in the spare bedroom, his anger rising, his need for an outlet burning through his insides until, without warning, he struck out and punched a hole in the wall.  He hadn’t even expected it.  He took his bloody hand out of the hole and sat with a thump on the bed.  He felt tears in his eyes and pushed them down again as he stripped off and laid down on top of the bed covers, brazenly hoping she’d come back but knowing that it would be better if she didn’t. 

 

 

Finn woke the next morning when he heard the toilet flush.  He felt an ache in his fist and moved the fingers gingerly.  Nothing seemed broken, just bruised and swollen.  He saw her walk past the spare room, without looking in, wearing a short black dressing gown and red fluffy slippers. 

“ ‘Morning.”  He called after her.  She walked back to his room, a glass of water in her hand, her hair tousled, her face unreadable, and looked in at him, lying naked and sprawled across the bed.

“ ‘Morning Finn.”

Their eyes both went to the hole in the wall, Elsa ran he tongue cross her teeth, unimpressed.  Finn looked from the hole to her face.

“You know I came here last night to fuck you.”

“No you didn’t.”  She dismissed his words.

“I did, and I will.”  He answered confidently, the rage from last night still smouldering in his eyes.  She looked back to the hole in her wall. 

“You’ll be fixing that.”  She said softly.

“Give me another excuse to get in your house.  It’s only a matter of time before it happens.  All that chemistry we got.”

“Finn, I’ve got chemistry with everyone.  Don’t overestimate yourself.”  She laughed, amused, and then smiled enigmatically, “put some clothes on, I’ll do some breakfast.”  Finn jumped up from the bed and grabbed her arm before she turned away.

“I know you liked it.  You couldn’t hide it.”  He looked down at the tie to her dressing gown and put his fingers to it, noticing that she didn’t stop him, he pulled it undone, his mind flashing images of Rae undoing her own robe and the feelings that produced started to drown him.  He pushed them down, tried to box them up. 

“Finn.  It’s not going to happen.”

“Why?”  He raised his hands to her shoulders and slipped his fingers under the collar, ready to take it off her, “Don’t you want me?  Don’t you find me attractive?”  His bruised eyes searched her face.

“No Finn, I do find you attractive.  I do have eyes in my head.  And I know we’d have great sex… because I’d be involved, and my sex is always great.”

“You can teach me what you like.”

“I don’t think so.”

“But you’re so sexy and so beautiful, and I want you.  So what’s the problem?”  He touched her cheek with his hand and moved closer to her, he kissed her lips softly, but it only lasted a moment before she pushed him away patiently.

She gently tied her robe back up and licked her lips thoughtfully as she took a small step back from him.

“There’s 3 problems Finn.”

“Right, and if I can answer all of them, will you fuck me?”  His face was still angry and hurt, as it had been the whole time he’d been here, even though he grinned, she saw his grief.

“If you can answer all 3 I’ll fuck you so good it’ll change your fucking life.”

“You’re on.”

“Right.  Well problem 1.  You’re still under 18.”  She smiled sweetly, knowing she’d won.

“I turn 18 soon enough.”

“It’s a hard fast rule.  No one under 18 gets in these pants.”  Finn waved it off.

“That’s a bullshit problem, what’s problem 2?”  He said cockily, aggressively. 

“Whilst technically you’re not currently my student, you will be in a manner of days, and I don’t fuck my students.”

“But I’m not your student right now.”  He thought he had this problem solved. 

“No.  But you will be.  And that matters.”

“I don’t think I’ll go back to college.”  He countered.

“Finn Nelson, if you don’t go back to college, I will personally kick each of your testicles 100 times.”

“Jesus fucking Christ woman!”  Elsa gave him an unrepentant glare.

“And problem 3, and this is actually the biggest of the problems.”  She took a sip of her water, “I am not a tourniquet and I am not morphine.  I have done some pretty kinky and perverted things in my sex life.  But I have never allowed myself to be used like that.  And I never will.  When people fuck me; they want to fuck ME.  When people are fucking with me, they are here with ME, it’s all about what we’re doing.  If we fucked Finn… it’d all be about Rae.  And I am not a substitute for Rae.”  She waited for a moment, watching his face as it all sank in, saw the pain he’d been trying to conceal with his brash actions start to resurface.

“Put your clothes on.  I’ll make us some breakfast.”  She left him with his thoughts and feelings, and he couldn’t stand it.  He hurriedly dressed and followed her out to the kitchen. 

“Did you really have an orgy the other night?” 

“That’s what you choose to ask me after what I just said?”  She chuckled.  He shrugged.  “Still running huh?”  She sighed and opened the fridge, “How many people do you think you need to have an orgy?”

“I dunno.  10?”

“Then no.  Not an orgy.”

“But how many-“

“I think we’ve done the prerequisite questions about my sex life that we seem to have every time we talk, for today, don’t you?  Move on.”  She got out some fruit and began to chop it up.  There was a guarded silence, Finn watching her, the way she moved, so sure, so unaffected. 

“How do you do it?”  His voice was so vulnerable that she looked up from what she was doing to help her gauge what he was referring to.

“You mean the self-confidence?”  She verified and he nodded, “it took a long time and a lot of work for me to like myself as much as I do.  And I’ll still be working on it the day I die.”

“It never ends?”

“It never ends.”  She wiped her hands and sat down next to him at the kitchen table, feeling that he was ready to finally talk.

“So what happened, lover boy?”  She teased and he smiled embarrassedly. 

“Leave off.”  He groaned and they laughed.

“It’s alright, I forgive you for coming to my house in the middle of the night and trying to fuck me, but not for putting a hole in my fucking wall.”  She glared at him, “But…  Worse things have happened to me.  Believe it or not.”  She conceded with a grin. 

“Oh well that’s comforting.  Makes what I did just fine then.”  He joked.  “Oh fuck Elsa, I’m sorry.”  As the magnitude of his multiple fuck ups started to dawn on him.

“It’s fine, you’re a teenaged boy, I’m surprised you didn’t put your dick in the new hole that’s in my wall.”  He narrowed his eyes at her but she laughed at him, he shook his head in reply, a comfortable silence settled between them, and Elsa sensed it was time to start prodding. 

“Are you gonna tell me what happened with Rae?”  She asked seriously, changing the mood very suddenly, very deliberately. 

“You already know.”  He barely spoke, turning his face away. 

“Say it.”  She demanded.

“We broke up.”  His face was screwing up with pain before he’d said the last word and tears formed in his eyes.  She saw him struggle to contain it and took him into her arms.  He cried, his hands fisted into his pockets, his body tense with emotion.  But very quickly he forced the emotion down, Elsa silently watching the struggle as he sat up and took some deep breaths.

“You’re not good with emotions or talking or any of that are you?”

“No.”  Finn’s voice cracked.

“Me either.”  She grinned conspiratorially.  “I’m good with logic and fucking.  But emotions do my head in.”  She turned to him, “How long have you physicalised your feelings?”

“I don’t know what-“

“-that means.”  She finished the sentence.

“I always feels so dumb around ya.”  He muttered.

“Most people do, don’t worry.”  She joked.  “And you’re not dumb Finn, just lazy with your thinking.  But you don’t know how to be otherwise yet, so don’t be hard on yourself.”  She watched him bite the inside of his mouth for a moment before continuing, “What I mean is, you seem to act out when you have big negative emotions.  You came here to fuck me and punch my wall, rather than cry over Rae.  You do that a lot?”

“Yeah.”  His mind wandered back to Olivia, who he’d fucked like a whore on the back seat of her car on their first date, after he’d heard from a bruised and crying Chloe that Rae was with Liam now, “quite a bit actually.” 

“Do you do it with positive emotions too?”

“I suppose.”  He answered wishing he was as numb as he sounded.  “Yes.  Every time I kissed Rae I hoped she could feel what I were feeling, that she’d just know all the things I never said.”

“That’s a bit of a problem isn’t it?”  She got up and went back to the kitchen.  “Do you want a cup of tea?”

“Aye, I wouldn’t mind a brew.”

“How do you have it?”

“What should I do?”

“Oh Finn.”  She sighed, “You should do whatever feels right to you.”

“Elsa please.”

“Like I said, I’m good with the head and the pants.  I’m no good with the heart.  You’ll need to find someone else to talk that shit through with.”

“But I need to get me head on straight!”

“Oh alright.”  She gave in and had a bit of a think, “If I were you, I’d spend some time alone, not too long, mind you… and think of all the things you never said to her and wish you had.”

Finn slowly nodded.

“After you’ve thought about them, ask yourself if you’re ok with never ever saying any of it to her.”  She put the sugar and milk in front of him, “If you are ok with never saying it, don’t try to get back with her.”  She poured boiling water into her teapot, “If you’re not ok with never saying it all… then you still need to decide if you can handle her world or not.”  She turned to him, “Cos if you can’t, then too bad – it all has to go unsaid.”

“But…”

“Finn…” her voice was exasperated but firm, and Finn’s lips narrowed in response as he watched her gesticulate at him, “it’s not enough to just love her, or to care about her, or to want to be with her.  It’s never enough.  There’s so much more to making a relationship work, and people don’t realise that and wonder why it falls apart.”

“That’s not true.”  He insisted, “Love is what keeps everything together.”  She sighed in annoyance at him.

“Ok… well imagine that your relationship is a house.”  She waited for Finn.

“Like right now?”

“Yep, imagine it.”

“Ok.”  He said bemusedly.

“Your relationship is a house…”  She considered what metaphors she could use, “Love is the roof… and trust is the foundation slab, and communication is the walls.  Without any of those three things you’ve got a pretty shitty house.”  She tested her metaphors in her mind to see if they worked, before continuing; “Can’t build a relationship without trust, can’t hold the roof up without communication, and without love, everything’s ruined.”  She saw realisation creep into Finn’s face and knew that she had his full understanding now.  “You’re trying to hold a roof up with no walls Finn.  It can’t last like that.”

“You’re right.”  He blinked slowly as his mind took it in fully. 

“I know.”  She answered sardonically and then light-heartedly continued, “Continuing the metaphor, I guess commitment is the little white picket fence around the garden.  I fucking hate picket fences, you know?”

“Turns out I don’t mine ‘em.”  Finn answered honestly.  They shared a smile and she poured out some tea and they sat together drinking the strong brew.

“You know communication is more than just talking and listening.  Part of it is understanding your partner and where they’re coming from, as much as you can, it’s an ongoing process.  Do you understand Rae?”

“Most of the time, no.”

“Right.  Do you think she understands you?”

“Most of the time, yes.”  He said with a sentimental, sad half smile.

“That seems a bit uneven doesn’t it?”  He nodded miserably, “Well I suggest that you go somewhere for a few days over Christmas, and you think about all those unsaid things.”  She took her tea back to the kitchen side and started chopping the fruit again, “Then you think about whether you can handle it in Rae’s world, and what it really means to be in that world.”  She turned back to him, “Make your decisions, fully aware and conscious of what you’re deciding to do.  Then come back, and act accordingly.  And get your arse to college.”  She nodded and put some chopped fruit in a bowl, “How does that sound… chubby chaser?”  She teased with a smirk.

“Piss off!”  He answered with begrudging humour, his face breaking out into a disbelieving grin. 

“Alright!”  She laughed at his mood, “I’m having fruit and yoghurt, what do you want?”

“Have you got some bacon?”

 

 

Finn left Elsa’s place still feeling emotionally raw but like he had a purpose now.  He walked home, left a note for his dad and got on his bike; headed for Leeds. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Lover, You Should Have Come Over’ by Jeff Buckley _

 

_I had carefully packed all of his things into a plastic storage box._

Rae read the playlist on a CD, ran her fingers along the edges of it, kissed it, tears slowly dripping from her face and put it on the box.  She picked up another CD, slowly examining everything about it, just as she had every item in the box. 

_It took a lot for me to put his shirt in.  I wanted to keep it and smell him forever.  But I knew I had to give it back, and eventually his smell would be gone from the material anyway._

_Mum had changed me sheets, so there was none of our sex left on them.  Once I took this box back to him, there’d be nothing left of him in my room.  In my life._

“I don’t want it to be over.”  She whispered to emptiness of her room.  She hadn’t stopped crying since the argument yesterday, even now she was incapable of controlling the tears. 

She took the box and listlessly walked down the stairs, heading for Finn’s place.  She saw the black box that held his Nan’s diamond necklace on the top of the pile and felt naked without it around her neck.  She hadn’t taken it off since he’d given it to her.  This morning she had wept uncontrollably as she carefully put it back in the box.  The keys to the car, the rego papers, a few CDs and videos, a shirt; his shirt.  She didn’t care that she was walking up the street crying, didn’t care that a few people had noticed and stared. 

When she arrived at Finn’s place she almost just left the box on the doorstep, but she couldn’t stand the idea of the chance that the necklace might be stolen so she knocked the door and waited to see him again, knowing it would tear her apart. 

But it was Gary who opened the door, red-eyed and holding a letter.

“Rae?”  His voice was soft, confused.

“I came to return Finn’s stuff.”  Her voice wavered and fresh tears leaked from her eyes. 

“He’s in Leeds.”  Gary handed her the note.  Rae read it and nodded miserably.  He’d left again. 

“Ok well, I’ll just leave this with you then.”

“No Rae, you’ll have to give it to him yourself.”  He shook his head bitterly, he wanted nothing to do with this, “I called him when I found this note,” He took the note from her, “and he says he might be back in a week.” 

“Ok.”  She answered hollowly and turned to leave.

“I’ll call you if he comes?”

“Thank you.”

“Rae… can I ask… what happened?”

“I happened.”  Her voice hiccoughed with tears and she turned to walk listlessly home. 

 

 

***

 

 

He had been waiting for the chance to return to his favourite pub in Leeds, but it had been closed over Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day.  So instead he’d stayed in his room at his uncle’s home and watched the skin over his broken knuckles slowly heal.  And he’d thought.  Something he often avoided.  He hadn’t let himself cry.  He never really did.

He felt that all that time alone in his room, not even coming down when his Uncle’s fiancé had begged him to eat some Christmas lunch, had done nothing to clarify anything. 

_What was Elsa talking about?_

_Taking some time to think?_

_It didn’t help!_

_Everything was a mess in me head._

_It always was._

_The only time me mind had ever been calm was when I looked in her eyes._

_And that were gone._

_And if love wasn’t enough – and I suspect that Elsa were right on that… am I enough?_

_Cos that’s what it’s really about._

_Am I enough for her?_

_And if I’m not, do I want to be?_

_Yes._

_I don’t even need to think about that._

_But can I be enough?_

_I don’t know._

_When I think about all the things I haven’t said to her._

_It makes me chest hurt._

He opened the familiar door, and smiled grimly and sentimentally at the familiar smells. 

“Finn.”  Nodded one of the old timers and he nodded back.  The bar was almost empty at this time of day.  But that was ok.  He hadn’t come for the ambience, or even for a pint.  It was clarity he needed. 

He went to the jukebox, picked out the song he always played in this pub and found his old faithful bar stool and settled in, waiting for her to appear. 

As soon as she heard the song, Janice knew he was back.  She was out back, helping her brother fill the kitchen fridges before the lunch rush; his kitchen-hand was running late for work.  She looked at her brother.

“Haven’t heard that song in a while.”  He said gruffly.  Janice wiped her hands on his apron and went out to the bar. 

He was sitting alone at the bar tearing the beer mat into tiny little pieces again.  As he always had been every night a few weeks back. 

“Hello Finn!”  She hugged him warmly and he returned the hug with gratitude.

“Hey.”  He answered with a genuine smile. 

“We’ve missed you.” 

“You should visit more.”  He countered and Janice nodded.  She’d helped him move back to Stamford, but had not visited since then.  She’d been busy looking for work after the art gallery she was working at was bought by a larger gallery and closed, leaving her with no work.  She was helping her brother out, but she really needed something more steady, and the search had consumed all of her time. 

“You’re right.  I’m sorry.  But you can visit too.”  She admonished and he grinned.

“I’m sorry!”

“It’s alright.  I figured you were busy with Rae.”  She saw him wince slightly and look away.

“I were.”  He said softly. 

“I really didn’t expect to see you here again.”  She looked at the way his fingers tore the beer mat, the way his shoulders slumped, the dejected air surrounding him.

“Didn’t expect to be here again.” 

“Pint?”

“Please.” 

She poured them both a pint and brought his round to him, sitting on the bar stool beside him. 

“You can have that one on the house.”

“Thanks.”

“Planning on drinking it away?”  She sipped her beer and watched him stare at his.  He shook his head.  They sat in silence for a while.

“Got a job yet?”  She looked at him from the corner of her eye.

“Feeling talkative?”  She joked.

“Aye.”  He answered sadly.

“Really?”  She watched him shrug his shoulders and pursed her lips in thought. 

“So this song again?  Always this song.”

“Can’t argue with Jeff Buckley.”  Finn answered.

“Very true.  He is a master.  But this song… it’s so melancholy, even for him.”

“Yeah well, I’m melancholy.”

“Is that why you like this song?”

“Yeah.  And I like the lyrics… and the way he sings ‘em.”

“He has a way of crooning doesn’t he?”  Finn nodded and she leaned over the bar and got some peanuts for herself.  “Tell me your favourite lyrics in this one.”  Finn stared ahead and smiled lopsidedly. 

“Ah all of it.”  He groaned in sympathetic misery with the song. 

“Ok.  Mine is ‘burning in the corner is the only one who dreams he had you with him’ I like the way his voice, just aches for her.” 

“Yeah.”  Finn nodded his understanding, his voice small, lost under the sound of the song. 

An image of Rae, her eyes opening slowly as she woke up after sleeping next to him flashed into his mind, and the yawning chasm of grief he felt ached for that loss. 

_I’ll never wake up beside her again._

“Your turn.”  She prodded.

“Um… ‘Maybe I’m too young to keep good love from going wrong’ I like... I hate it” He said, bitterness rising in his voice.

_I felt the bile on my tongue._

_I was away from her.  There were so much distance between us._

_And it were my fault._

He saw the flash of pain in Rae’s eyes.

_Yeah maybe for you, but you know what I did when we were apart?_

_Fucked Liam, made him cheat on his girlfriend._

_Fuck you!_

That flash of pain. 

Deep in her heart pain.

_Why did I say that?_

_Why?_

Janice saw the self-hatred and self-pity play across his face and left those emotions with him.  She didn’t try to examine them with him.  She knew Finn was smart enough to figure out his own emotions, he just had to not bury them so deep that he couldn’t see them, that’s all. 

“What else?”  She instinctively asked, not understanding why she was pushing, when he was in pain.

“When I’m broken down and hungry for your love with no way to feed it, where are you tonight… you know how much I need it.”  She heard the grief in his voice and left that alone as well.  The ache in Finn’s chest grew and he felt tears sting his eyes. 

“There’s a yearning isn’t there?”  She smiled at him, examining the song instead of his emotions, “it feels like he has nothing, he’s broken and empty and all he has left is old wounds, old thoughts of her.” 

_The smell of her…_

He saw the way her lashes had moved on her face when he was inside of her that first night, the way her breath had escaped her in small sighs.  How it had felt religious somehow, sacred.  He remembered her mouth, her eyes, her skin.

Janice watched his eyes growing red and understood what he needed.  She looked at his untouched beer and back to his face.

“Any others?”

“Too deaf, dumb, and blind to see the damage he’s done.”  He said through clenched teeth.

“That’s his guilt.  Shame.  He knows it’s his fault that it’s all fallen apart.  He knows he’s hurt her.”  She saw Finn’s chest heave convulsively, “There’s a feeling in this song that he can’t change it, can’t undo it.”  She saw the first tear escape from his eyes. 

_Fucked Liam, made him cheat on his girlfriend._

That flash of pain before she spoke defensively. 

_Fuck you!_

She had felt the need to defend herself from him. 

_I always thought I’d be the one to protect her._

_Not the one that hurt her._

“Why else do you play this song all the time Finn?”

“So I’ll wait for you and I’ll burn.  Will I ever see your sweet return?”  His aching, his yearning was palpable and Janice put a hand to her mouth.  In the time he’d been away, his love for Rae had grown, more than she could have imagined. 

“He doesn’t know how this will end.  If he can get her back.”  Janice said softly. 

_It’s my choice._

The way her hair had flown around her face as she’d turned, as she’d left him. 

The way his inside had hollowed out, been replaced by an aching chasm, deeper than the deepest ocean, wider than the Grand Canyon. 

How he had felt like he was nobody now, as she had pulled her hand from his.

As she had left him.

His mind wouldn’t stop showing him, in exacting, minute detail, every little thing that he didn’t want to see.

_Tears on her cheeks._

Every time she had cried flooded his mind.

“My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder.”  His voice cracked pitifully, the tears flowing now.

Making love in the back of their car.

“All my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her.”

Holding her in his arms as she slept. 

Janice put her arm around his shoulders, but he just continued quoting the song.

“All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter.”  His voice was barely audible now, his throat thick with tears. 

Every smile she ever gave him.

“She’s the tear that hangs inside my soul forever.”

Her turning, her leaving him. 

“She’s his everything…  He’d do anything for her.”  Janice interpreted the lyrics again.  “He’d do anything to have her again.”  Finn nodded.

“Aye I would.”  He turned to his beer and picked it up with shaky hands, taking a sip he tried, but was unable to stop his tears, “that’s why I like this song.”  He said trying to at least steady his breathing and looking back across the pub self-consciously. 

“But you misquoted the song Finn.”  He looked back to her.

“I know.”  He said softly.

“But the words you’ve left out are very important.”

“I know.”  His voice shuddered with emotion.

“It’s never over; my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder.”  Janice said resolutely. 

_I can feel her lips on mine._

_Don’t think about it Finn._

The aching pit inside of him screamed for acknowledgement. 

“It’s never over; all my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her.”  Janet continued. 

_The way she smiled when she opened her sleepy eyes and saw me._

_I can’t…_

His tears renewed and his body shuddered with long repressed grief

“It’s never over; all my blood for the sweetness of her laughter.”  Janice took a breath to steady herself as she saw him weeping.

_The way her face looks when we laugh together.  When she teases me… when she smiles…_

_She’s everything…_

_And I lost her…_

“It’s never-” but he collapsed into the arm she already had around him, a hand pressed against his mouth hard, the other one clenching the bar, his knuckles white.  And he wept. 

He hadn’t cried like this since his Nan had died, and even then he’d repressed it as quickly as he could. 

This time he didn’t know if he could repress it anymore. 

_I don’t even know why I was crying so much._

_I thought back to when me mum left, how me dad had told me to try and be brave._

_How he’d kept his tears in._

_I thought to all the times I’d felt shamed, alone and how much I missed me mum._

_How much I missed me Nan._

And then the connection he felt with Rae crashed into his mind and stampeded through his soul.

_I saw me Nan’s necklace around her neck, the silver chain drawing a line, a connection through all the women of my family._

_She were my family._

_And she left me too._

The pain of her leaving him as well hit him harder than any physical blow he’d ever received. 

Janice held him while he cried for a long while.  When her brother came out of the bar he paused, looked over at the only other patron in the bar, and felt glad he’d fallen asleep over his pint like he always did.  He nodded up at the clock, drawing Janice’s attention to the time, 10am; customers would start showing up soon.  She nodded imperceptibly and he turned back to the kitchen. 

“So you think it’s over?”  She asked softly.

“Yeah.”  He felt the weight in his chest, “I think it actually is this time Janice.”  His chin quivered with grief, “So I guess that’s really why I choose this song: it’s fucking depressing.” He tried to smile, but couldn’t, so he turned to his pint and took a large gulp.  But he slowly supressed those tears, not wanting to feel this anymore. 

But she smiled at him.

“No Finn.”  She said softly and took his hand in hers.  “This song is melancholy, just tragically sad, but for all of the pain in it, there’s still hope.”  She squeezed his hand and he turned his eyes to her, “He says ‘lover you should have come over, cos it’s not too late’ And I think that’s why you choose this song.  Because you still have hope.” 

“It burns me.”  He exhaled painfully.

“Because you don’t know how to make that hope into something viable.  How to get your hands on it.  How to do something.  Anything… to fix it.”  Finn nodded, his tears finally starting to slow down, his face more grown up than it had been the last time she saw him. 

“Aye, probably.”  He said finally, trying to smile.  He looked down at the torn pieces of the beer mat.  He took a few shaky breaths. 

“So what happened between you two?”

“I happened.” 

“That seems a bit unfair.  It usually takes two people to argue.”

“I’ve got no control over me emotions, I don’t even understand them.  And I can’t talk…” He shook his head, frustrated with himself, feeling anger rise in him again. 

“You’re talking right now.”

“Yeah but I can’t talk to her!”  Janice ignored his outburst. 

“This is the second time you’ve sat in my brother’s bar and told me about Rae.”  She chose her words carefully, “and from what I can see ‘it’s never over’ definitely applies to your feelings for her.  So you better learn how to speak to her.”  She said firmly to his tear-stained face. 

Finn looked at her.  A strange light in his eyes, a resolution masked by wisps of smoke, yet to take form, yet to solidify.  He had an idea.  An understanding.

“Alright?”  She asked.

“Alright.”  He agreed.

“When will you head back?”

“Probably tonight.  Thanks Janice.”

“Anytime Finn.”

“I knew it were a good idea to come here.”  He smiled, sadly, but genuinely.  She smiled in return and took a sip of her beer before changing the topic, giving him some space with his emotions.

“You asked me if I found a job yet…” He nodded to indicate he was still wanting to know, and wiped his face dry with the sleeve of his jacket, “No… but I did apply for that job you sent me.  Thank you for that, by the way.” 

“That’s fine, you’d be good at it.  I hope you get it.”  He answered, starting to feel like himself for the first time since Rae had first broken up with him, months ago. 

“Me too.  But if I get it, I won’t have anywhere to stay.  Which is a bit of a bother.”

“Well me dad’s always banging on about how he wishes you’d visit again.  You can probably rent our spare room until you find a place.”

“I’ll have a chat with him then.  If I get the job of course.”  She took a large swig of her drink, “How old is Gary?”  Her voice was a little higher than usual, and Finn shook his head and laughed.

“He’s turning 34 this year.”

“I meant to say ‘how is old Gary.”  She laughed awkwardly and Finn pulled an obviously sceptical face at her.

“Oh.  Ok.”  He said sarcastically, “makes sense.”  He laughed and she belted his arm ineffectually.

“Don’t know what you’re chuckling about!”  She laughed and finished her drink in a big gulp.  “Cheeky bugger.”  He laughed, looked at her and bit his bottom lip, she saw that he had fully realised what he needed to do.

“I’m sorry Janice, but I have to go.  I gotta make a phone call.  I gotta organise something.”  He said urgently. 

“Sod off then.”  She said as he hugged her.

“Thanks for the talk.”  He said appreciatively.  “Bye!”  He called already half way out the door. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ by Massive Attack _

 

Chloe opened the door, Archie stood on the doorstep looking pissed off.

“What’s happened?”

“They broke up and Finn’s in fucking Leeds again.”

“Oh no.”

“I don’t understand them!”  Archie marched himself into Chloe’s room and threw himself onto her bed.   Chloe felt strange inside.  On one hand, if she had Finn, she’d never let him go.  On the other she loved Rae and knew she had to be hurting now. 

“Maybe they’re not meant to be?”  Her mouth felt like it was filled with cotton

“We have to figure out a way to get them back together!”  Archie said resolutely, purposefully ignoring Chloe’s comment. 

“I don’t think we should interfere.”  She sat down on her bed and tried to get her emotions in order.  “I mean, we don’t even know why-”

“They devour each other and cannot even digest themselves.  It’s a Nietzsche quote.”  He added as if that cleared everything up.

“Ok.”  Chloe said bewildered.  Archie sighed.

“It means that they don’t understand, can’t take themselves but-“

“Archie, it doesn’t matter what it means.  We can’t interfere.”  Chloe said, feeling more like herself.

“But we’re the best mates, you and me.  Don’t you want your best mate to be happy?”  Archie sat up, his face almost pleading. 

“Yeah I really do.  But if they’ve broken up again maybe Finn isn’t that happiness?”

“Well I know Rae is that happiness for Finn.”  Archie said indignantly. 

“We don’t know that at all.  He might have dumped her.” 

“I don’t believe that…” Archie lifted his top lip in disgust at the very thought. “Besides, you’ve seen them together.  They can barely keep their hands off each other.”

“God Archie, people having a lot of sex don’t mean they’re happy!”  Chloe exclaimed.  Archie stared out the window moodily rather than reply, and Chloe scooted along the bed to sit closer to him.  “I’m sorry.” 

“No.  I’m just pissed off Finn’s gone again.”  He took her hand, “you’re right, it were a stupid idea.”

“I dunno… what’d you have in mind?”  She gave in, smiling at his infectious grin.

“Road trip to Leeds?  Force them in a room to talk?”

“Oh shit!  Has anyone told Chop?”  She suddenly remembered. 

“Oh that’s right, he’s gotta meet Finn tomorrow at the Chippy.” 

“Ok.  Well I suggest we wait and see if Finn’s a no-show, if he is, we get Chop and Izzy in on the plan.”  Archie nodded his agreement.

“And the plan is?”  He asked. 

“Kidnap Rae, road trip to Leeds, lock them in a room together.  Like you said.”

“Excellent.”

 

 

_Dear Diary_

_6 days._

_6 days._

_We broke up on the 23 rd of December 1996._

_The day after we got back from Sutherland._

_Now it’s the 28 th of December 1996._

_23 rd_

_24 th_

_25 th_

_26 th_

_27 th_

_Today._

_I have to write the days out or else I hardly notice them pass._

_Time seems to move so slow and so fast._

_It feels like it’s still the 23 rd.  And that time has frozen on that moment of pain.  Everything hurts as if it was happening right now.  _

_But it feels like it’s been decades since I saw him.  Since I kissed him._

_I lie awake at night thinking about how he felt lying in the bed next to me._

_Sometimes I lay his shirt out beside me and smell him on it._

_I can’t believe I’ll never feel his arms around me again._

_That I’ll never feel his lips on mine._

_That I’ll never tell him…_

_Mum thinks I should talk to Kester about Finn._

_The only good thing to come of it all is that I lost some weight.  Maybe if I got real thin, I could make him take me back?_

_No._

_Don’t think about it Rae.  Just go for another jog._

_It helps._

She opened the door and saw that it was sleeting.  She pulled the hood up on her jacket resolutely and closed the door behind her with a bang. 

When she ran, her lungs bursting, the blood pumping in her ears, she could almost outrun her emotions. 

She didn’t know how long she’d been running before a sound pierced her empty mind. 

“RAE!”  She snapped out of it turned around and saw Finn, his helmet under his arm, his mouth opened ready to call her name again.

“Finn.”  She said with no emotion; they hadn’t caught up with her yet. 

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Exercise.”

“It’s sleeting.”

“You’re out here.”

“Looking for you!”  His face was a type of frustrated bewilderment that she’d never seen before. 

“Why?”

“Cos we’ve got somewhere to be.”  He answered self-consciously, “come on.”  He motioned her towards his bike as he walked the short distance back to it.  He took a spare jacket and helmet from under the seat and held them out to her.

“Where have we got to be?”  She took the helmet and jacket from him but stood there just holding them. 

_Oh no.  My emotions were starting to catch up._

_I wanted to cry._

_I wanted to throw my arms around him and kiss him._

_I wanted to slap his stupid face for going to Leeds._

_I wanted to beg him to take me back._

_I wanted to change me clothes and not be wearing what I were wearing right now._

_But all I could do was stand there looking at him._

“Just get on the bike Rae.”  He said as he swung himself onto the bike.

“Why?”

“Just get on the fucking bike!”  She put the helmet and jacket on and tried to get on the bike without touching him too much.  She took hold of the seat jutting out behind her to steady herself.  And Finn drove off carefully. 

_It seemed so odd to be on his bike and to not have my arms around his waist, my face near his neck._

Rae felt tears burning her eyes and tried to blink them back. 

A few moments later the bike stopped at a familiar place.  Rae looked at Finn confused, as she took off her helmet.  But he just took her hand and led her inside. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Pick You Up’ by Powderfinger _

 

She walked the familiar corridors, feeling alien to have Finn beside her. 

They went past the door to the maternity ward.

Rae thought back to the day Finn had arrived, unannounced at the hospital while she waited for word on her mother.

“How did you know to come for me that day?”  She remembered how good it felt to see him when she had so needed him but had been too afraid to ask him for help.  The pain of the last week made it a bittersweet memory and she felt a tear creep down her cheek.

“You needed me.”  He answered simply. 

“How did you know where I was?” 

“When I went to your place to find you, I saw Karim.  He told me you were here.”

“Yeah but why was you in Stamford?”  She turned to look at him, so close to her but so distant.  She wanted to touch him, wanted to reach out and make everything better.  She still didn’t understand why he had brought her here. 

“You called me.  So I came.”  His voice was thick with emotion.

“But I didn’t say anything.” 

“But you were crying.”

“I barely made a noise.”

“Aye” he smiled, the ghost of his cheekiness played with his lips, “and you do bang on so much you’d be surprised that I still know your voice even when it’s silent.  But I do.”  Another tear slid down her cheek and he gently wiped it away.

“You knew it were me when I hung up.” 

“I knew it were you.”  He nodded, his voice soft, reassuring. 

“You knew just what to say.”  She looked back at the waiting room and in her mind, she saw them sitting there.  Saw him telling her she was strong. 

“No but I didn’t.  I just knew you needed me, so I told you the truth and hoped it were enough.”  His whole body showed his vulnerability, his fear of what she would say as she turned her eyes to him.

“It was.”

He took her hand and Rae felt her heart leap when his fingers closed around hers.  He guided her further into the hospital, eventually stopping outside of the most familiar door in the building.  She turned her questioning eyes on him and he smiled, embarrassed.  He’d been practicing what he’d say to her once they got here.  But even so, his mind raced, not knowing where to start. 

“Finn?”  But her voice slowed everything down.  And he was able to pick up the thread of his thoughts, find a place to start.

“Now don’t laugh at me, but when I were in Leeds.”

“Which time?”  A pained expression crossed his face momentarily, but he persisted calmly.

“The first time.  I got myself a library card.”

“So?  I’ve got one.”  Rae’s confusion was palpable. 

“Aye, but I spent a lot of time reading.”  He looked away nervously, but quickly turned his eyes back to her, determined to continue, “Don’t be angry… but I read about mental illness and recovery.”

“Why?”

“For you, of course.”

“Me?”  He nodded, paused, afraid to say what he had to say, in case saying it would make it real to her somehow.  If she saw the extent of his failings, maybe she’d never give him another chance.

“I’ve been letting you down Rae.”

“Why would you say that?”  Her disbelief made his insides squirm. 

“I were so excited about getting in your lady parts, that I did the wrong thing.”  He saw her face screw up. 

_I’m saying it all wrong!_

“It were my choice, I needed to.”  She asserted. 

“We spent 2 weeks making that same choice.”  He countered, and then quietly, but resolutely; “we should’a talked.”

There was a silence as Rae took in what he said.

“I didn’t want to at first.”  Rae said quietly, “it hurt.  And then…I didn’t know how to say...”  She shook her head, not able to find the words.

“Me too.”  He understood her.  He looked downcast, licked his lips and tried to look stronger than he felt, “You need someone that can listen and talk right proper.  And that’s not me.”  He said with regret.  Rae felt her world spinning out of control.  Why did he come here, why did he give her hope, only to take it now?

“No Finn…” She pleaded.

“But I want it to be.”  He said fervently.  Rae took a deep breath and Finn squeezed her hand as he turned to the door and knocked firmly. 

“I need to learn how to talk.  We need to learn how to talk.”  He turned his head to her with a wry grin.

Kester opened the door and nodded at Finn, his eyes then turning to Rae, who stared at Finn uncomprehendingly. 

“So let’s learn.”  His voice was confident, sure of his choice, but pleading with her to agree.  She nodded slowly. 

Finn walked in and sat down in one of the chairs Kester had provided for them.  Rae took the other and put her hands between her knees to try and steady them. 

Kester closed the door and looked at both of them.

“I don’t normally do this kind of therapy.  But when Finn called, he made some excellent points about support networks and communicative partners in the recovery process.  So we’ll do a couple of joint sessions like this and see what comes of it.”  Rae turned to look at Finn, tears pricking her eyes.

“I’m not ready to give up on us Rae.”  He answered her silent question.  She reached out her hand to him and he took it. 

As Kester settled back into his chair, his hand folded over his stomach, Rae and Finn let their hands drop and focussed on what he might say.

“I’ll start by just making sure that you Rae, are ok with this?”  He turned his gaze to her.

“Yeah.”  She sniffed back tears and nodded, “I want to do it.”  Kester nodded, satisfied with her response, lit a cigarette and turned to Finn.

“Would you like to start Finn, since you brought us all here?”

“What?”  He looked at Kester, terrified, and Rae felt her heart swell with emotion.  Kester kept his calm eyes on Finn, and Finn looked to Rae, then to the floor.  He wiped his palms on his jeans and bit the inside of his mouth.

_What do I say?_

_What’s the right thing to say?_

“Alright.”  He said as he searched the floor for answers.  He licked his lips.  “Um… Well.”  Images of the argument, that flash of pain in her eyes, returned to him, and he turned his face to Rae.  “The first thing I want’a say is…” He struggled for the right words.  “It were my fault we fought Rae.  And I’m sorry.”

“Why do you think it was your fault?”  Kester kept his face towards Finn, but watched Rae closely from the corner of his eyes. 

“I let that pillock get under me skin.”  Finn answered Kester truthfully, shame colouring his cheeks.  He turned to Rae, “and I hurt you cos of it.  You did nothing wrong.  And I-”

“No it were me.”  Rae answered quietly, “I should’a just said that Liam was being a twat instead of…” She shrugged, “I dunno… getting angry.”

“It’s not your fault!”  Finn answered adamantly. 

“I’m the one who kept banging on about Olivia.  I could see it were upsetting you.”

Kester’s eyebrows furrowed as he listened to them go back and forth blaming themselves, the debate becoming slightly heated, before a thought suddenly occurred to Finn.

“And how were Liam being a twat?  What’d he do to you?”  Kester watched the frustrated, unsure young man become suddenly enflamed, emboldened, enraged. 

He leaned forward in his chair and gently cleared his throat.  Rae turned her eyes to him instantly, Finn’s lingered on Rae before slowly turning to Kester.

“Let’s start again.”  He said with a repressed smile, “what brings you here Finn?”

“I want Rae.”  He answered vehemently, his raised pique still not pushed back down.  Kester watched the boy struggle with his emotion.

“And what stops you from ‘having’ Rae?”  Kester emphasised the word with mild distaste.

“I dunno.”  He shook his head, frustrated, “I’m no good at talking.  And I always fuck up cos of me emotions.”  His heart was in his mouth, he didn’t like saying stuff like this in front of Rae.  Kester considered this for a moment and turned to Rae.

“What do you think is the biggest barrier to your relationship?”  He asked her.

“Me being mental.”  Kester crossed his arms and sucked his teeth for a moment, considering where to take this mess.  He tapped his thumb against his arm, drew heavily on his cigarette, and looked closely at first Rae, and then Finn. 

“Anything else Rae?”  He asked knowingly.  She lowered her eyes and pulled at her skirt.  Kester kept his eyes on Finn as he waited for what he knew she’d say. 

“Cos I’m not…” she stopped, the words choking her.  “Cos I’m ugly and-”

“No you’re not!”  Finn hotly snapped.

“I’m fat.”  She retorted straight to his face.  But instantly her fearless face collapsed into a self-loathing, silent sob.  And she looked away, panic starting to rise, her breath starting to shorten.  Finn jumped up and knelt in front of her, recognising the panic.

“Put your hands on me.”  He took her hands and put one over his heart. 

Kester watched, astonished, as Rae closed her eyes and focused on Finn’s heartbeat.  He smiled to himself and let Finn take the lead. 

“It’s alright.”  Finn soothed.  “We’re fine.  You’re perfect.”  He whispered to her calmly.  It took a few moments for Rae to pull herself back from the panic, but she still couldn’t look at him, couldn’t see what he’d think of her.

“I’m sorry.”  She said finally. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for Rae.”  Finn kissed her cheek, and whispered softly, privately “I love your body.”  He pulled back slightly, looking her in the eye, making sure she had heard him, knew that he meant it.  Kester lowered his eyes, and cleared his throat.  Finn looked away self-consciously and returned to his seat after making sure Rae was ok. 

“I think you underestimate yourself Finn.”  Kester said once Finn was seated, “I think you both do.”  Rae looked over to Finn and they shared a hopeful smile. 

“I want to return to the argument.”  Kester said as he pulled his ear and licked his lips in thought, “Finn.  What are the three worst things you said in it?  The three things you regret saying the most?”

Finn felt his mouth go dry, his mind completely blank.  He turned to look at Rae, hoping to see the answers on her face.

“Don’t look at Rae.”  Kester said as he leaned back again and licked his top lip again.  Finn turned and looked at the books on the shelves, biting the inside of his mouth, willing his mind to find the answers.  

“I um… I said I had to watch what I say around her.  That were pretty shite.”  His eyes flicked over to Rae, his insides writhing with guilt and shame.  Her eyes were downcast, her fingers picking at her nails.

“Hmhm.”  He heard Kester encouraging him and dropped his eyes to the floor.

“I said…” He thought about that flash of pain in her eyes, “I said that she fucked Liam.  That it were her fault he cheated on his girlfriend.”  He sucked his bottom lip and felt tears of shame sting his eyes.  He waited for Kester to tell him how terrible that was, what a bad person he was. 

“And the third?”  Finn looked up at Kester, confused.  He saw no judgement, no scorn. 

“I said I weren’t mental enough to be in her world.”  Finn blurted out without even realising what he was going to say.  He lowered his eyes from Kester’s face and studied his shoes.

“Did those things hurt you Rae?”  Kester turned to her.

“Yeah.”  She said softly and Finn felt his chest ache.

“What did he say that hurt you the most?”

“That we was over.”  Finn’s eyes shot up to hers. 

“And what are the three things that you regret saying the most to Finn?”  Rae kept her eyes on Finn’s.

“Like I said, I banged on about Olivia when I could see it were upsetting him.  Two.” She looked away, ashamed, “I let him think that Liam gets me cos I were angry at him, I didn’t tell him what a twat Liam were.  And Three, I said that it were a mistake to be together, that I were over it, that we was done.”  She shook her head, “I really regret that one.  I regretted it as soon as I said it.”  She wiped her face with her sleeve and looked back up at Finn, “I’m sorry.”

“And they all hurt you Finn?” 

“Aye.”

“What did Rae say that hurt you the most?”

“That I couldn’t handle her stuff.  That I didn’t belong in her world.”

“You fear that you’re not enough?’  Kester cut to the heart of him and Finn felt an aching pain wash through him as he nodded his head slowly, trying to stop the tears threatening to stain his cheeks.

“Yeah.”  He answered softly. 

“I think we should discuss that in some one on one sessions, what do you think?”  Kester reached over to his table and picked up his appointment book.

“Ok.”  Finn agreed, even though he obviously hadn’t been expecting that. 

“Thursdays.  After college.”  He made a note in his book when Finn nodded. 

“Why do you think you had this argument?”  He asked both of them.  They turned to each other and Rae nodded for Finn to answer, he hesitated and turned back to Kester.

“It had been building up I guess.” 

“When did you first notice it building?”

“When she first broke up with me.”

“That was a few months ago?”  Kester ascertained and Finn nodded. 

“So over those months, all those feelings, that emotion… just stayed inside you?”  Kester put his fingers to his own chest to demonstrate the question.  Finn nodded again and Kester nodded thoughtfully in return. 

“And you Rae, how long had it building for you?”

“Longer.  Since we first got together.” Kester opened his mouth to reply but Finn turned his face urgently to her.

“Cos you think I’m not enough for you?”

“Cos I think I’m not good enough for you.”  She replied as if his words were insanity.  Kester watched a moment of real understanding pass between them.

“You know,” He took the chance to make an important point, “When we argue, we feel angry, sometimes like there’s no answer, or no end to the anger.  And you may say things or hear things that cause pain.  It feels like the bad feelings will never end, that all of our worst thoughts are obviously true.  But you two must understand that is temporary.  It will pass.  And you need to know that you can argue, and it doesn’t have to be the end of your relationship.”  He folded his hands together “especially if you both still want to be in it so much.  And you’re both still willing to do the work that needs to be done.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Fall At Your Feet’ by Crowded House _

 

Rae gingerly laced her fingers around his waist as they settled on to the bike.

_I were home again._

He placed his hand carefully on hers, his fingers tracing out words on the back of her hand: _my place?_   He felt her nod and started the motorbike.  Rae leaned her head against his back and tightened her embrace, making his heart ache for how close he’d come to losing her. 

They drove in silence, her head against his back the whole way.

When they pulled up to Finn’s house he took her helmet off her.

“Me dad got called in to work.  He were right pissed off about it.”  Finn took her hand and led her inside as he continued to speak, “I think he were right mad at me for going again.  But I were always coming back this time.”  He shrugged.

“Why did you go?”

“I needed to.  I got some good friends there.” 

“Will you go again?”  Her voice betrayed her worry.  Finn turned to her.

“Maybe…  If I need to.  But I’ll always come back.”  He stroked her cheek, “might take you with me next time.”  His hand fell to her shoulder and crept to the nape of her neck, his eyes penetrated hers with an aching, yearning gaze.  Slowly, he brought his lips to hers, gently tasting her, but he stopped, a gasp of emotion left his throat and he looked down.

“I thought it were over.”  He breathed painfully.

“Me too.”  Her voice laced with raw emotion.

She put her hand up to his face and marvelled to feel tears on his cheeks.  She’d only ever seen Finn cry once, and even then he’d repressed it pretty quickly.  She kissed him, all her emotion for him, all the visceral aching she’d felt for him translated into her long, slow kiss. 

They stood, foreheads touching, Finn stroking Rae’s face and hair, Rae’s hands on his chest, feeling his heartbeat.

“I missed you.”  She said through tears, yearning and unexplained words, pain, history. 

“I missed you too.”  His voice mirroring hers. 

He took her hand and they went up to his bedroom.  Finn closed the door behind them and turned to her, watching the way she took his jacket off and carefully laid it on his desk.  He took his shoes off and she followed his example and left them next to his.

“I think I made a mistake Rae.  Actually, I know I did.”  She turned to him, afraid of what he might say, “I tried to make you feel better about yourself, make you not feel self-conscious, by not telling you how much I love your body.  It were a mistake.”  He walked to her and slowly drew her jogging jumper off over her head and let his hands fall down the smooth skin on her arms. 

“I should’a told you from day one how much I want you.  It’s fucking criminal how much I want you.  How much I fucking love your body.”  She saw the ache in his eyes, heard the yen in his voice, “some of the things I want’a do to you are probably criminal too.”  He said with a wry smile and she felt herself responding to his seriousness. 

“I’m not good with words.”  He took her hand:

 _But I’ll try_ , he traced. 

“Is that alright?”  She nodded in reply and he looked back down to her hand. 

 _I love your hands._ He traced the words slowly, making sure she understood them.  Then looked up to her face. 

“The way they make me skin feel when you touch me.  The shape of ‘em, the way your nails are always bitten.”  He whispered after he’d traced the words.

He ran his fingers up her arms:

_I love your arms_

“I love the way they feel around me.  The way your elbows are rough and the mole you got right here.”  His fingers found the raised brown lump and traced around it.  Rae felt tears in her eyes.  Finn gently took her singlet top off, and then her bra. 

_I love your neck._

“It smells like you.  Tastes like you.”  He smiled fondly. 

 _I love your breasts_ , he traced on her chest above her breasts. 

“They’re very big and very sexy and they were probably the first part of you I noticed, I’m not ashamed to say.”  He grinned deviously as he let his fingers linger near her nipple, before he knelt down at her feet and then slowly slipped her track pants and underwear off in one movement.  After she stepped out of them, he tossed them away and smiled at the sight of her fully naked body.  He took his time to look at her stomach, her hands crept up to cover herself, and he gently removed them before tracing

 _I love your stomach_ slowly, taking up as much of her upper stomach as he could with his scrawling script. 

“It’s perfect.  And just like your thighs,” His fingers brushed her cutting scars and then came back to her stretch marks, “it’s got battle scars, remind me how strong y’are; what you’ve survived.”  He looked up at her as he kissed just above her navel.

 _I love your vagina_.  He traced on her lower stomach, and let his fingers wander down to her vulva. 

“Because it brings you so much pleasure.  And you deserve pleasure.”  He kissed her vagina and let his hands run firmly across to her hips.

_I love your hips._

“The shape of ‘em.  Makes me fucking crazy.  And the way they feel when we’re making love, the way they move…”  He ran his hands over their curve and then down to her thighs.

 _I love your thighs_ his fingers traced the words on her left thigh, while he caressed her right one.

“You have no idea what they feel like wrapped around me.”  He grinned, “They are so, so sexy.” 

He put his arms around her, laying his head on her stomach he traced out words slowly on her bottom.

_I love your arse._

“It is actually the most perfect arse in all of the world.”  He said seriously, a grin creeping onto his face.  She smiled, laughing through her tears.  He ran his hands down her legs to her feet:

_I love your feet._

“They’re cute, and I like how your second toe on your right foot, is longer than your big toe, but on the left, it’s not.”  He nodded with a big grin.  He bit his bottom lip, happiness creeping back into both of them, and stood up, his hands running up her body as he did and put his arms around her, burying his face in her neck, tracing words on her back. 

_You are my moonlight._

“My light when it’s dark.”  He whispered.

_My sunshine._

“My warmth when it’s cold.”

_I love your face._

“It’s so beautiful.”  He took her face between his hands, “You.  Are so beautiful.  And I should’a told you sooner.”  He kissed her lips slowly, meaningfully, his hands tangling in her hair, his sense of time fading as he lost himself in her warm embrace. 

It were as if she had been huddled at the bottom of an utterly dark pit, hearing the walls cracking in a cacophonic shriek of agony all around her for centuries.  And he had come and with a slow careful deliberate tracing of his fingers begun to heal this old pain, these old wounds, lying at the very core of her; shone light upon her.  She felt a warm glow throughout her being, felt her skin tingling. 

She believed him. 

She believed him. 

She felt found.

She laced her fingers around his belt and pulled him closer, her hands starting to undress him.

“We don’t have’ta.”  He said softly.  “I mean… I think we had sex instead of talking before.”  He sounded fragile, unsure, aching to be inside her, but not wanting to make the same mistakes. 

“Do you not want to?’  She asked, uncertain.

“Aye I want to.”  He breathed in deeply, “I have never wanted someone like I want you Rae.”  He touched her face, “I’ve never been attracted to someone as much as I am to you.  But I don’t just want your body… I want to know you.” 

“I want both.”  She agreed, then lowered her eyes in thought, “I need both.  Now.”  She added truthfully as she raised her mouth to his.  She kissed him ardently, wrapping her fingers through his hair when she felt him starting to undress himself in response to her.  He wrapped his arms firmly around her and laid her carefully down on his bed, his lips never leaving hers. 

Slowly, feeling every millimetre of her, he brought his hands up her body to her face.

“You’re so beautiful.”  He murmured as he kissed her lips, his fingers tracing the shape of her face. 

Rae felt the weight of him above her, the feel of his thighs against her inner thighs, the hunger in his kisses. 

He stopped to study her face, and she reached up to touch his cheek.  His skin was smooth with a few light freckles dusting his cheeks and she tried to memorise where every single one was.  She noticed the way his eyes moved from her eyes, to her lips, and the shuddering, gasping inhale that left his parted lips as he slowly slid inside of her.  She felt his stomach contract as he thrust to be deep, felt him move inside of her. 

His breath on her face.

His fingers in her hair.

That unfathomable look in his eyes. 

He kissed her and she tasted his sweet lips as if for the first time. 

“It feels like the first time.”  She whispered as he caressed her cheeks, her eyelids, her forehead with soft, slow kisses. 

“It is.”  His voice was barely audible, but the emotion was raw and inflamed, honest. 

And she understood.  It was the first time that they had both been fully present and in the moment.  It was the first time they’d both been unafraid.  It was the first time that their need for each other was greater than their want.

He kissed her neck sending shivers down her spine and she smelled him, tasted his salt, felt the muscles of his back working under her fingers as she ran her hands up his back to hold him closer to her.  He was inside of her but she ached for him to be closer.  Whether he sensed her need, shared it, or both, she didn’t know, but he slipped his arms under her to pull her into an embrace.  She clung to him and kissed his mouth with the same longing she felt from him; closer, closer. 

Always closer. 

When the heat in her lower belly started to smoulder and erupt like a slow burning volcano, her kisses grew more heated, but she did not pull her lips from his as she moaned, her body shivering with hot delight.  She came, groaning her orgasm into his mouth as she pulled him closer.  He groaned as he felt her body tremble and felt her hot breath shudder against his face, her lips quivering with pleasure as her tongue slipped over his.  Before she had finished groaned he felt the electricity in his body ignite, felt a powerful shuddering rock through his innards as emptied himself deep inside of her, his lips never leaving hers. 

They lay, embracing, kissing, him still inside of her for a long time.

Closer.

Want to be closer.

Need to be closer.

“I’ll never be ok without you.”  He whispered, “I’m not gonna let you go this time girl.” 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Lovesong’ – The Cure _

__

He flipped 2 eggs out of the pan and onto her plate expertly before plopping the remaining 4 eggs on his own plate.  He sat down and poured tomato sauce all over his eggs, Rae watching him with a fond smile.

“You’re such a boy.”  He raised his eyes to hers.

“Aye.”  He answered affectionately.  His eyes dropped to her plate as she dipped a bit of toast in her yolk and put it to her mouth.  He ate a big mouthful of eggs and took a big sup of coke, watching her from the corner of his eye.  She ate half a piece of bread, dipped into one yolk and then started to push the food around on her plate.  He kept eating, giving himself time to make sure that he was seeing right.

After a few minutes of surreptitiously watching her not eating he put his own fork down and watched her outright.  He took a sip of his drink and put the cup down loudly so she’d look up. 

Rae looked up from her plate and saw his eyes burning into her, his lips pursed. 

“I noticed that your stomach is smaller.”  He kept his eyes on her steadily, “And your thighs.”  He added, his heart starting to speed up.  He worried what she’d think and feel, but he had to say something. 

“Yeah?  It’s good innit?”  Rae smiled, oddly pleased. 

“Not really.”  He let his eyes drop meaningfully to her plate and then stared at her face again. 

“I’ve just been exercising a lot.” 

“Oh.”  He answered in a monotone.  “Exercise is good.  If you want to exercise, fine.  I’ll come with you.  It’ll be fun.”

“Sure.”  She answered and made a show of eating some egg white. 

“You need to eat Rae.”

“I am eating.”

“But not enough.”

“Girls eat less than boys!  I told you that already.”  She retorted defensively.

“You eat less than Chloe and Izzy.”  He countered, “I been watching.” 

“Yeah well, that’s cos they’re smaller than me, they can afford to eat more.” She said quietly.  Finn reached across the table and put his hand over hers.

“Rae.  You have to eat enough food for your body.  Please.”  His final word was filled with emotion and a pleading she’d never seen from him.

“But I were doing so well.  Wouldn’t you prefer it if I looked like one of them girls on tv or in magazines.”

“No.  I like that you don’t look like a girl in a Playboy.  It’s good that you don’t.”

She lowered her eyes and looked at her food.

“If I could just lose some more off me belly?”  She almost whispered. 

“I don’t just like you in bits and pieces Rae.  I like all of you.”  She looked up at him, repentantly, “Especially your belly.”  He said meaningfully.  “And please don’t lose any size of your thighs, I like getting me head crushed between ‘em when you cum.”  He added cheekily, licking his top lip suggestively. 

“You dirty bugger.”  She admonished with a pretence at offended sensibilities.  He smiled, but was not finished saying what had to be said, so his face quickly became serious again. 

“If you’re hungry, eat.  Until you’re full up.  Don’t ever worry that I’ll stop loving your body.”  He held her gaze, waiting to see acceptance in her eyes before he’d let this topic go. 

“What if I end up weighing a thousand stone, would you still love it then?”

“Aye!”  He said in all seriousness, “A thousand stone or 10 stone.  I’ll love your body.”

“How?”  She snapped in disbelief.

“Because it’s yours.  Because it’s you.”  He let go of her hand and picked up his fork, “So like I said, you want to do exercise: fine, as long as you don’t do too much.  You want to change your diet: fine, as long as you eat enough food.  And we both know you’re not doing that right now.”  He ate some eggs and waited for her to do the same.

“I am pretty hungry.”  She said after a while of looking at them.  He raised his eyebrows meaningfully in response.  She dipped the toast in the other yolk and scooped it into her mouth and Finn broke out into a satisfied smile.  He subtly took some deep breaths, calming himself after how nervous that conversation had made; how terrifying he’d found it.  He watched her eat with wonderment; he had talked to her.  He had deliberately set out to talk to her about something that had been deeply troubling him, and it had been ok.  He raised his fork to his mouth and saw that his hands were shaking. 

He ate and watched her finish everything on her plate and then turn her eyes to his empty plate.

“Still hungry?”  He asked with an enchanted grin.

“A little.”  She said, embarrassed. 

“I’ll make you some more eggs.” 

“No don’t worry about it.”  She answered, not wanting to put him out.

“I’m making myself some more, might as well throw some in for you.” 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Cannonball’ by The Breeders _

 

“I’ll give him a right bloody bollocking I will.”  Chop was grumbling to Archie when Chloe walked in to the Chippy.

“Lads.”  She sat down with an appraising look, “Izzy?”  She asked Chop.

”Says she’ll be back tomorrow in the morning.” 

“Right, so we’ll get Rae and go to Leeds tomorrow?”  Chloe ascertained.

“Do we have his address?”  Chop turned to Archie.

“No, we’ll have to go ask his dad.”

“Right, let’s go now.”  Chloe started to stand up.

“Right, so what’s the plan?”  Chop stopped her.

“We get Rae, we take her to Leeds, we lock them in a room, they sort it out.”

Chop looked at Chloe with his face screwed up in concentration.

“What if it don’t work?”

“Of course it’ll work.”  Archie sounded offended that Chop would doubt the plan. 

“Yeah, but what if it don’t?”  He insisted.

“Then we…”  Chloe’s eyes searched the Chip shop for an answer, “do an intervention.”  She said finally. 

“Like with the tomato sauce bottle?” 

“Yeah.”  Chloe went with it, “and we’ll make them talk it out.”

“But what if they don’t want to?” 

“Chop!”  Archie admonished, “It’s Finn and it’s Rae!”

“We have to do something.”  Chloe backed Archie up, she was determined to see them back together; guilt over the incident in Sutherland was driving her to ensure that Rae would have maximum happiness.  With Finn. 

“There’s not a lot I wouldn’t do for our Rae Rae.”  Chop agreed.  “And Finn does deserve a boot up his arse for not showing up yester, and for letting Rae get away in the first place.” 

“So we’ll get the address now, and drive up to Leeds tomo-”

“No fuck that!”  Chop said angrily, “let’s go up today.  I’m right pissed off at Finn!” 

 

 

_We kissed, for possibly a whole week, in the shower._

_I never wanted it to stop._

_I could have had his hands on my body, his skin against mine forever._

_But after a while me fingers started to prune up and I knew it were time to get out of the shower._

_I kept thinking of the way he’d talked to me when we was eating lunch._

_It felt nice not being hungry._

_But I couldn’t quite believe that he’d always love my body no matter what._

_1000 stone – not a chance!_

They went downstairs, Finn carrying a bundle of their clothes, Rae still drying herself, to put the television and snuggle in for some afternoon viewing before Finn’s dad got home for dinner.

Finn watched her drying her hair, her body jiggling and wiggling in time to the motion of her arms and he felt delicious contentment until his eye focused on her bare chest.  Where her necklace used to be.  He knew why she’d taken it off, but he didn’t like to see her without it and he made a mental note to address this.  Finn tossed the clothes on the coffee table and ruffled through them.  He found his boxers and pulled them on, keeping his eyes turned to Rae, who was still carefully drying her hair. 

“Keep jiggling like that Miss Earl and I won’t ever let you put clothes back on.”  He said saucily and she shot him a narrow-eyed glare.  He raised his eyebrows suggestively and sauntered over to her, his fingers reaching out to touch her. 

There was a knock at the door and they both turned to look at it.  Rae quickly wrapped the towel around herself and looked at Finn with wide eyes, silently pleading with him not to answer. 

The door knocked again.

“I’ll just get rid of whoever it is.”  He said to her worried face.

He opened the door a crack to see Archie standing there, Chop and Chloe behind him.

“Oh.”  Archie sounded disappointed.  “Hey!”  And then happier.

“The fuck you doing here?”  Chop asked angrily.

“It’s my house.”  Finn said utterly confused and very self-conscious to be in just his boxers.

“You’re s’pose to be in fucking Leeds!” 

“I was.  But now I’m not.” 

“Right, and you just forgot to meet me at the fucking Chip shop?”  Chop pushed past Archie, “The fuck Finn, people are worried ‘bout you.”

“I’m sorry?”  He was still bewildered.

“Sorry?  Are you fucking sorry about breaking our Rae Rae’s heart.  You deserve a boot up your arse for that.”

“Alright?”  Finn asked Chop, “It’s fine.”

“No, but it’s not fine!”  Chloe pushed past Archie on the other side, “What about when you told me that you wanted to be with her for a long time.  She’s me best mate Finn.  I don’t want to see her hurting like she is.”  She straightened up, feigning the confidence she didn’t feel, “so we’re taking you to Rae’s house right now.  And you have to sort this all out.”

“But-”

“No!”  Chloe stopped him, “No questions.”

“No arguments!”  Chop backed her.

“No.”  Finn replied, trying to contain his growing laughter.

“Finn,” Archie sounded pained, “are you alright?”  But Finn couldn’t think of the right answer to this question, so he just opened the door fully to reveal Rae, in nothing but a towel, her wet hair falling in tussled locks down her bare shoulders. 

There was an awkward silence. 

“Hi guys.”  Rae said self-consciously, holding her towel in a death-grip and wondering how long it was in the front and how much of her legs they could see. 

“Hi.”  Chloe said amazed.

“Yeah, hi.”  Archie blinked.

“Well when the fuck did this happen?”  Chop asked, still piqued.

“This morning.”  Finn was so bemused it was hard to hide as he tried to put on a serious face.

“Well fucking good.”  Chop stepped back from the door, “make sure this shite don’t happen again!”

“Alright.”  Finn laughed self-consciously, “um… can you guys go now?”

“Yep.”  Archie nodded once and turned away.  Chloe smiled in at Rae and followed suit.

“Love you lad.”  Chop tapped Finn’s face, “love you Raemundo.”  He nodded in her direction and left. 

“Job well done guys; I think we can call that a success.”  Archie said as he opened his car door. 

Finn closed the door behind them and turned to Rae.

“The fuck?”  He asked starting to laugh, Rae shook her head in disbelief.

“I don’t think we’ll be allowed to break up, even if we wanted to.”

“Aye it works for me!”  He took her into his arms and stripped the towel off her, “pity to lose it,” he said as he dropped it, “you look good in a towel.”  He kissed her and firmly held her to him.

“Now what crap tv do you want’a watch?”

They started watching a re-run of the latest ‘Cracker’ episode, Finn’s fingers drawing circles on her arm, his arm hung lazily over her shoulders. 

But his mind kept wandering back to Liam, pressed against Rae, her spine against that tree.  He’d only seen it for a second before he’d grabbed Liam.  But it was scorched into his brain. 

That guy.  That guy.

Saying he took her virginity.

Saying she was like him.

Pressed against his girl. 

Rae noticed Finn’s body tensing, his fingers no longer drawing on her arm. 

“What is it?”  She asked softly. 

“What were you and Liam doing?”  He asked without looking at her. 

“I don’t really want’a talk about it.”

“Yeah but you and me not talking don’t end well do it?”  He said as he turned to her, his hands moving to his lap, fidgeting, pulling at the skin around his nails.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t.”  She added with a mild ‘chill out’ tone that put Finn even further on edge. 

“Why were he touching you?”  The words fell from his mouth suddenly. 

Rae looked off, not wanting to think about the things he’d said to her. 

_Does he let you take your clothes off?_

_Does he lie and tell you that you’re beautiful?_

She felt the walls in her pit starting to close in on her again and she turned away from Finn.

“I didn’t want him to.”  Rae answered.

“So he did it without your permission?”  Finn asked, his temper threatening to explode when he saw the small nod of her head. 

“He were trying to get me to go out with him again.  I told him I were with you.  And he didn’t like it.”  Rae continued, thinking about the way his hand had felt over her mouth.  The things he’d said. 

_Does he know what you’re like when you binge eat Rae?_

_Does he know how fucked up you really are?_

_How you scratch your skin?_

_Does he know what’s going on in your head, like I do?_

_Nah Rae he’s just guessing._

“And, I guess he said some pretty fucked up things to me.”  She kept going, wanting to be honest with Finn, but not wanting to repeat anything Liam had said.  “And we argued.  And then you came.”

Finn lowered his eyes, wanting to ask her if he’d been her first, but hating himself for wanting to ask it.  He bit his bottom lip.

“Did he hurt you?”  He asked after a long pause.

“I hurt myself backing into the tree when I was trying to get away.”  She gave him a wan smile, “He did scare me but.  And he did… hurt me feelings… got under me skin a little.”  She looked at his thoughtful face, “A lot.”  She corrected.

“Got under mine too.”

“He’s good at that.”  She agreed sadly.

“Why are you friends with him.”

“I guess…”  She sighed, not sure what she was going to say, “I guess us mental people have to stick together.”

“Right.”  Finn said softly, the pain clear in his voice. 

“And he’s not all bad.  At least he didn’t used to be.”  She shrugged, “I’m not sure if I am friends with him anymore.”  Finn found that this calmed him a little. 

“Did you tell him to stop touching you?”  Finn felt that familiar anger eating at him.

“I did.  Yeah.”

“Right.”  He gritted his teeth.

“Don’t Finn.”  Rae saw his anger, “he’s not well.”  She touched his arm, “he’s like me.”

“No he’s not like you!”  Finn snapped.  Rae didn’t know what to say to that. 

“Stop being a dickhead!”  She said, remembering his words to her in the disabled toilet.  He turned his eyes to her.

“I’m not being dickhead.”  He answered, his anger a calm simmering cauldron, “I’m gonna smash that fucker.  No one.  No one Rae, touches my girl.”

“Finn…?” Rae was worried about this mood.

“Without her permission.”  He added softer but no less dangerously. 

“Finn?”  She repeated and there was something in her tone something that made his anger haze clear and he saw… was that fear on her face?

“Rae.”  He said softly, horrified at the look in her eyes, “I’m sorry.”

“No it’s fine.”  She answered a little stiffly.  And in that moment he saw himself clearly. 

“I think I got a problem with me temper.”  He said through numb lips, his mind feeling as if he were unwrapping his own innards. 

“No.”  Rae shook her head, “No, Liam gets under people’s skin.”  She soothed.  He looked down at his knuckles at the still healing skin.  He thought of putting is fist through Elsa’s wall.  That hadn’t been Liam. 

“Aye he does.  But when it comes to you Rae…  I lose a bit of control sometimes.”  He said, suddenly scared for her.  He was just now realising how dangerous it was for her to be around him.”

“You mean like that guy in the pub?”  Finn thought back to head butting that guy and how good it felt to see his blood and teeth on the floor. 

“What if I did that to you?”  He said suddenly terrified his hand going to her face and stroking her cheek protectively. 

“You never would.”  There was no trace of doubt in her voice. 

“But you was scared a minute ago.”

“I were scared for Liam, not me.”  She took his hand, “Mostly I’m scared for you.  The fuzz’ll end up locking you up, if you don’t watch it.”  He bit the inside of his mouth. 

“I have done some stupid things.”  He answered, “when I were right pissed off.”

“I think we all have.”  She smiled.  Finn was unconvinced and Rae could see that, “do you want’a talk to Kester about it?”  She proffered and Finn nodded, relieved.

“That’s a good idea.” 

“Maybe you do stupid things cos you don’t know what to do with your feelings, like me.”  Rae said as she stroked his hair.  Finn was comforted by that idea.

“We’re more alike than we think?”  He asked with a genuine grin.

“I hope so.”  Rae answered comforted by his words.  “That’d be nice.”  He nodded in agreement and they settled back down into the lounge, arm in arm, to watch tv. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Lover You Should Have Come Over’ by Jeff Buckley _

 

Finn was sleeping peacefully, his head leaning on Rae’s shoulder, when Gary got home.  Finn didn’t stir but Rae, still awake turned her face to see Gary as he stopped at the door looking in at them. 

He paused, looked down for a moment, took a breath, and then looked back up at Rae, smiling, he nodded his head.

“ ‘Evening Rae.”  He said softly. 

“Hi.”  She returned and Finn stirred, put his arm around her stomach and pulled her closer, murmuring her name, clear enough for both of them to hear it. 

Gary’s eyes strayed to his son and then back to Rae.

“Staying,” he paused meaningfully, “for dinner?” he added carefully.

“If you don’t mind?”  Finn stirred again, holding her even tighter, turning his face up to her neck and breathing deeply. 

“I’d love for you to stay, Rachel.”  He answered, “for dinner.”  He added as an obvious afterthought.  Finn murmured something and his hand crawled up from her waist to her breast and he groaned happily.  Rae felt her face going red and Gary averted his eyes.

“Right!”  He said loudly, Finn snapping awake, “I’ll just go cook!”  He winked at Rae conspiratorially, and then left the room. 

“Hi.”  He smiled and kissed Rae in a sleepy haze, “what’s the time?” 

“I dunno, but your dad’s cooking dinner.”

They sat at the kitchen table as Gary cooked and talked about his day at work. 

After dinner, Finn handed her the spare keys to the car and she drove them, the long way, back to her place. 

It was a bittersweet goodnight kiss that was only broken by Karim brushing the car accidentally as he came home from work. 

Rae climbed up the stairs to her room, her fingers caressing the hem of Finn’s jacket.  She sat on her bed and smelled the jacket deeply.  It smelled of him. 

Finn quietly climbed in the window behind her and watched her smell the jacket with a wistful smile on his face. 

And then Rae cried.  Sobs wracked her body and Finn’s facial expression turned from one of joy to one of alarmed worry.

“Rae?”  He said softly as he crossed the room to her, she looked up alarmed, not expecting anyone in the room.  He sat down on her bed, putting his hands on her arms.

“Don’t you ever leave me!”  She cried at him, tears streaming from her eyes.

“I won’t!”  He said taking her into his arms, horrified by how violently her sobs shook through her body.  “Alright girl, I won’t.”  He felt her arms around his waist, holding tightly, felt her tears damp against his skin. 

He laid down with her in his arms and stroked her hair while she cried. 

He didn’t fully understand why she cried, but he understood her need.  He understood her emotion.  He kissed the top of her head as she held onto him, her knuckles white, and cried. 

“I’m sorry.”  She said after a long time, “It’s been a very hard week for me.”  She said, her voice still wavering with emotion.

“For me too.”  He reassured her and moved to be closer to her as she sat up taking deep breaths. 

“See, doing stupid shite cos I can’t handle me emotions.”  She laughed shakily and he looked adoringly at her as she grabbed some tissues and wiped her eyes and nose. 

“This wasn’t stupid.”

“Um… telling you that you can never leave me is pretty stupid!”  She said embarrassed.

“Rae,” He took her hand and looked gently moved her face to be looking at.  “It’ll never be over between us.”  He answered with stark honesty.  He looked over at the plastic box of his things, and nodded to it.  “Can you pass me that?”  Rae leant over and picked up the plastic box, fresh tears gently rolling down her cheeks.  He opened the box and took out the black jewellery box.  He opened the box and looked down at his Nan’s diamond.

“I don’t know what’ll happen in the future Rae.  But I know that my Nan told me to give this diamond to someone special.  And that will always be you.  No matter what happens.  Even if you get bored of me and dump me,” a ghost of a smile flitted across his face when he saw her vehemently shake her head, “I don’t want you to take this off again ok?  No matter what.  This belongs to you.  You’ll always be my first love.”  He leaned over and placed the necklace around her throat, Rae’s hand went up to it as soon as she felt the weight of it on her chest.  She kissed him, slow, but with deep need and urgency. 

“Alright?”  He asked about the necklace

“Alright.”  She answered breathlessly.  “For someone who don’t talk Finn, you do have a way with words.”

“Huh.”  He laughed nervously, “I spend half me time terrified I’ll say the wrong thing.”

“Why?”  She asked bewildered.

“I don’t want to lose you Rae.”

“Ok.  Well let’s just agree that we won’t break up with each other over saying stupid shite.”

“Agreed.”  He smiled relieved, his eyes going from her eyes to her mouth and back up.  He bit the inside of his mouth and looked to the window he knew he had to climb out of. 

“Rae?”  He asked vulnerably, “Can I stay tonight, I don’t want’a sleep alone.”  He lowered his eyes, “We don’t have to do anything, I just want’a hold you.”  He felt hopelessly exposed and scared of what she’d think and say. 

“I was just about to ask you to stay.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘You Better Get A Lawyer Son’ by The Cruel Sea _

 

Linda opened the front door, ready to check the mail.  She paused, her hand on the door handle, her eyes scanning the length of that black car.  Something akin to rage overcame her entire being.   She turned from the door, slamming it behind her loudly.  She stormed past Karim, holding Aiesha, up the stairs to Rae’s room, she slammed open the door.

“FINN NELSON!”  She yelled at the top of her lungs.  Rae and Finn started awake, Rae grabbing the blankets.

“GET THE HELL OUT OF MY DAUGHTER’S BED!”  She yelled.  Finn held out his hands to placate her, but she was having none of it, he started to back out of the bed.

“Linda…”  He tried to say.

“DON’T YOU LINDA ME!”  Her voice hit a strikingly high pitched shriek and Finn backed away, grabbing the pillow to cover his groin.  Aiesha started to bellow downstairs and Finn stumbled back further away from an enraged Linda.

“DO YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST DISAPPEAR FOR A WEEK THEN WALTZ BACK IN HERE AND GET INTO MY DAUGHTER’S BED?” 

“No.”  Finn answered, terrified.  “I-”

“WELL I’VE GOT NEWS FOR YOU!”  She pointed at him, “YOU ARE NOT SEEING RAE AGAIN!”

“MUM!”

The sound of Aiesha’s crying got closer as Karim came up the stairs.

“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH YOU HURT HER?  THE NIGHTS I SPENT CRADLING MY LITTLE GIRL?  AND YOU JUST SHOW UP AGAIN AS YOU PLEASE?”

“I’m sorry.”  He pleaded backing into Rae’s desk, knocking books and pens to the floor. 

“Linda.”  Karim’s voice was soft and controlled, “Aiesha?”  He rocked the baby so that she could see and Linda, obviously wanting to say more, clenched her mouth shut and just glared at Finn.  Karim soothed the baby expertly as Linda bore her eyes into Finn’s soul.  And Rae tried to get her wits back. 

“Mum!”  Rae finally said in shock.

“Don’t you mum me.”  Linda turned her eyes to Rae, “we both know what he put you through, and if you want to forget it so easily you can, but I won’t.”  She stormed out of the room.  Karim looked at them both, compassion in his eyes.

“Stay breakfast.”  It wasn’t a request and Finn knew it.  He nodded obediently.  And walked back to Rae’s bed, his hands shaking, the pillow firmly held to his groin. 

“Thanks.”  He said softly.  Karim nodded.

“Kester ok?”  He asked.

“Yeah, thanks for giving me his number.”  Finn answered with heartfelt gratitude.  Rae looked from Finn to Karim.  Karim nodded, smiled lovingly at Rae and left the room, Aiesha calming down in his protective arms. 

“You called here to get Kester’s number?”  Rae asked as Karim headed down the stairs.

“Lucky Karim answered!”  Finn answered seriously.  “Bloody hell.  Your mum.  Force to be reckoned with.”  He collapsed onto her bed laughing shakily. 

“AND DON’T YOU DARE HAVE SEX AGAIN!”  Linda suddenly yelled up the stairs at them.  They pulled a face at each other and Rae started giggling silently.

“Oi, what’re you laughing at?”  Finn joked.  “I just nearly died!  Killed at the hand of your mother!”  But Rae kept laughing.

“Want a quickie?”  She asked eventually, through her chuckles.

“No!”  He jumped off her bed and found his pants, “I’m going downstairs before your mum kills me.”

Finn sat down at the table, Rae following and sitting at the opposite side to her mother.  Finn gently scooted his chair to be closer to Rae and Linda narrowed her eyes at him.  Karim put Aiesha in her cot and continued to make breakfast. 

“I’m bloody ropable at you.”  Linda seethed.

“I am sorry.”  Finn answered softly, keeping his eyes on the table. 

“Not you, you bloody bastard, I’m furious at you Finn.”  Finn looked up to see Linda looking at Rae.

“How could you just forgive him so easily?  You deserve better.”  Linda asked

“Mum, it weren’t his fault.”  Rae’s exasperation was punctuated by the sound of Karim scraping the spatula in the frying pan. 

“It was my fault.”  Finn countered and turned his eyes to Linda, “I won’t do it again.”

“You won’t do it again?  What won’t you do again?  Break her heart?  Make her cry for 6 days straight?  Well I’ve got news for you, you’re a boy, there’s no doubt in my mind that you will do it again.”

“Mum it’s my choice!”

“And it’s my choice to not let him under this roof again!”  Karim walked over to the table, and started dishing up food, a worried look in his eyes.

“Mum!”

“I don’t understand why you would choose to trust him again!  Why would you take him back?”

“It… know…” Karim sighed in frustration, “Jamais il n'a été que l'amour ne connaît pas sa propre profondeur jusqu'à l'heure de la separation.”  He said and turned his eyes to Rae.

“You’re catching on with French quicker than me.”  Linda retorted when Rae turned her eyes to her. 

“Um… well something about separation, and um… strength.”  Rae struggled.  Karim pointed at Rae and Finn, and moved his hands apart, signifying a separation

“Love.  Uh… know how strong.”  He tried again.

“Don’t know how strong it is until it’s separated?’  Finn guessed. 

“Yes!”  Karim beamed at him.  Linda glared moodily at Karim for a moment and sucked her teeth, shaking her head.  She looked down at her plate to see it piled high with bacon, fried tomato, mushrooms and eggs.

“Karim, this is real bacon, we can’t have this it’s halal!”

“Haram.”  He corrected with a smile and then shook his head, shrugged and pointed at the bacon as if to brush of her concerns.  But Rae noticed that when he sat down to eat his food, there was no bacon on his plate.  They ate in silence for a while, Finn uncharacteristically picking at his food rather than practically inhaling it.  Linda glared at Finn as she ate, her face murderous.  Eventually Finn put his fork down uncomfortably and turned his eyes to her, a slight air of determination in his movements as he cocked his chin slightly. 

“Mrs Bushtat, I care about Rae, I like being with her.”

“What is it that you like about her?”  Linda snapped.  “Why Rae?”

Finn opened his mouth to respond but Karim put a hand on Linda’s arm and spoke softly.

“Et l'amour ne vient pas quand nous le voulons, mais vient comme un cerf errant quand il le veut.”

All eyes turned to Rae again she sighed and tried to dredge up the French lesson she’d had 3 years ago. 

“Um… love…”  She shook her head and tried to pick up any word that would help her, “happens…”

“When want.”  Karim tried to help her.  Then pointed at his own chest, “Not when want.”

“It happens when it wants to, not when we want it to?”  Rae asked and Karim nodded happily, he turned to Linda and put his hand to her face gently.

“Just do.”  He said meaningfully, his eyes filled with love.  He shrugged and Linda felt a smile creeping across her face.

“You’re perfect.”  She muttered at him with a mix of begrudging happiness. 

“Something about a deer?”  Rae asked, confused, as she continued to think about translating Karim’s French.  Karim nodded.  “Ok.”  She shook her head indicating that she’d probably never understand exactly what he had said.  Aiesha started to fuss and Linda went over to the crib.  Karim turned to Rae and Finn, he looked first at Rae and then at Finn.

“Be good.”  And then he pointed to both of them, his finger moving back and forth between them, “each other.”  And then he turned to help Linda.  Finn picked up his fork and started to eat properly. 

“And we can’t afford to keep that car Finn.”  Linda said as she prepared Aiesha for a feed. 

“I’ll pay for it.”

“How?”  She turned to him, Aiesha already suckling and Finn averted his eyes as subtly as he could.

“I’ll quit smoking.”

“You must smoke a lot.  Petrol, registration, tyres, mechanic…”

“I can do the mechanics.”  He shrugged.  “I’ll get a job if I have’ta.”  Linda pursed her lips in thought. 

“You should be focussing on school.”  She looked over to Karim and back at Finn, “I’ll pay half of the cost.”  She made peace with him and he nodded solemnly.

“Thank you.”

“I could get a job.”  Rae put in and Linda narrowed her eyes at Rae.

“You’ll be focussing on your grades and going to university.  You’ll be the first one from our family to go to university.”  She smiled proudly. 

A kind of truce settled over the house and Finn was allowed to go back up to Rae’s bedroom after breakfast.  They showered together. 

“I don’t think I’ve even been in that much trouble.”  Finn marvelled as he wet down his hair and started shampooing it. 

“What about Stacey’s mum?”

“Aye she kicked me out, but I weren’t terrified of her.”

“Well don’t mess with me mum.”  Rae shrugged.  Finn laughed, still slightly shaken. 

“I think I were most scared that she really would try’ta stop me from seeing you.”  He stopped his movements for a moment and caught her eye.

“That’ll never happen.”  Rae reassured him, “I’d whinge so much she’d give in in an hour.”  He grinned and kissed her, shampoo streaking down his face.

“Ugh!’  She laughed as shampoo hit her tongue, “get off!”  He kept kissing her, using his face to rub the shampoo into hers while she squealed in laughter. 

 

 

_This week has been unbelievable._

_6 days without him that felt like 6 hundred years.  And now he were back._

_It wasn’t like it was before.  He was different somehow._

_I mean he was talking more.  We was talking more._

_But there was something else._

_I can’t put me finger on it._

_He just seems more serious?  Or determined maybe?_

_But he’s always been sorta serious.  This were different though._

_That look of his that he gets in his eyes that I can’t understand, he looks at me like that a lot more now.  Almost all the time._

_It makes me nervous, but in a good way._

_I feel different too._

_I feel like…_

_I feel like I’ve turned a page in a book somehow._

_Things were different, but nothing had changed._

_I can’t explain it._

 

 

They all sat silently around the big bag of chips Finn had bought.  Everyone’s eyes were on Finn.  He sipped coke self-consciously and waited for someone to say something. 

“No more going to Leeds!”  Izzy voiced what they were all thinking.  Rae smiled appreciatively at Izzy. 

“Unless I’m visiting friends.”  Finn tried to counter.

“Nope.”  Chop snapped, “you heard what she said.” 

“No more Leeds.”  Archie said with a pained tone.  Finn turned his eyes to his mate.

“I’m sorry Arch.”

“You should be.”  Archie answered curtly.

“I just had to get away for a bit.”

“Yeah but you don’t get to run away all the time!”  Chloe said.  And those words, coming from her, after what they had seen her go through on their last night in Sutherland made Finn’s insides crunch in.  She couldn’t run from it; it was always with her. 

“You’re right Chlo.”  He answered gravely.  He looked at them all, “I am sorry.  It won’t happen again.  Promise.”

A loud hooting from a bunch of guys near the door made them look up, it was Elsa walking in, her jeans clinging to her big hips and arse, a long sleaved crop top snugging her large breasts, her leather jacket, thrown over her shoulder hanging from a single finger, swinging in rhythm to her swaying hips, helmet under her other arm.  The perfect hourglass shape of her large body was on glorious display. 

“Good lord!”  Archie said.

“Who’s that?”  Chop asked.  Izzy elbowed him and he turned to her with a half-guilty grin.  “I didn’t mean it like that!” 

“That’s Elsa.”  Rae grinned.  She couldn’t believe that someone so fat could be so attractive.  Every time she looked at Elsa, it made her think that maybe one day she might wear fire-engine red lipstick and tight pants that showed everyone how big her arse was, and not care what people thought.  She was just so confident, and sex seemed to just ooze of her.  Rae screwed up her eyes, how did some women do that?  She wanted to be sexy and seductive and to make Finn beg for her. 

“Look at the size of that fucking arse!”  One of the loud guys jumped up to follow her to the counter.  He raised his hand to slap it and she turned to him.

“Touch me and you’ll pull back a stump.”  She said with a venomous smile.  His hand hung in mid-air for a moment before he let it drop to his side.

“Come on pet.  Big girl like you must want some cock.”  Rae felt her insides churn as she thought about what had happened to her at the pub.

“Should we help her?”  Izzy asked.

“She’ll be fine.”  Finn answered knowingly. 

“Oh please.”  Elsa dismissed him, she looked around the Chippy, taking in everyone and turned to him as one of his mates came to back him up, “I could have every single person in this room.  Even the straight girls.  On the long list of cock I could ride and pussy I could eat in this room, you are so far down on that list you make the ants look giant.”

Finn started to chuckle, the rest of the gang taking a moment to catch up from their shock, before they laughed too.  

“You fat bitch.”  His mate said.

“Yeah.  I am.”  She pronounced her words clear as day, proudly, “I am a.  Fat.  Bitch.  And one your cock will never be inside of.”

“I feel so inspired.”  Rae said softly as she stared at Elsa in wonder.  Finn put his arm around her and tugged her hair gently so she looked at him momentarily before looking back at Elsa.

“Like I’d wanna.”  The second man snarked.  Elsa laughed seductively and turned to him, a finger stroking down his cheek.  She put her face close to his, her eyes alight with passion.

“You know I just realised how right you are.  I am fat… I really should be thankful for guys like you, willing to throw a dog a bone.”

Rae’s face dropped but Finn shook his head.  Elsa stepped even closer to the guy, not quite touching, but close enough for him to feel the heat of her skin.

“And I think you should ride this big arse of mine.  Could you just imagine grabbing these hips.”  Her body moved almost rhythmically as she made her words caress him.  “Your fingers digging into my soft flesh?”  She licked her top lip slowly, suggestively, “you wanna smack this?”  Her hand ran over her arse and the guy smiled and nodded lustily looking at her rump.

“That’s more like it!”  He said.  She chuckled throatily.  And both guys moved closer.

“Neither of you will ever touch me.”  She said in that same deeply seductive voice, her smile sexually triumphant.  She turned away and looked at the menu hanging over the counter.  The cook was still flipping burgers and hadn’t noticed a thing, but several of the patrons were watching on.  Rae dropped her jaw in admiration. 

“Bloody hell.”  Izzy admired. 

“She’ll get herself in trouble like that.”  Chloe fretted. 

“You fucking slag!”  The first guy said.  She held her hand up in a stop signal.

“We’re done.”  She dismissed them.  Without looking at them again. 

The cook came up to the counter.

“Can I help you?”  He asked, completely unaware of what had just transpired.  The two guys backed off reluctantly and Elsa laughed as they did, waving goodbye with her fingertips mockingly.  One of them flipped her the bird and she shook her head, obviously pitying how pathetic they were.  She placed her order and waited by the counter as the cook turned to cook it. 

“I just gotta go talk to Elsa.”  Finn jumped up and went over to her.  Rae watched for a moment and then turned to the gang;

“Guys go easy on Finn, ok?”  It were as much my fault.”

“Oh bollocks!”  Archie responded.

“Hey.”  Finn said as he approached her.

“Finn.”  She answered without looking at him.

“S’pose you get that a lot looking the way you do?”  He nodded towards the creeps, his tone of voice appreciative.

“You wouldn’t believe it.”  She intimated turning her eyes to him with a wry grin. 

“Aye, leave off.”  He smiled at his own expense.  She smiled fondly and turned to him.

“So how can I help you today Finn.”

“I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be coming back to college.”

“Good.”  She answered genuinely. 

“I look forward to you being me teacher soon.”  He nodded humbly. 

“I already am your teacher Finn.  Just not your typical one.” 

“That’s true.”  He admitted, “and the hole in your wall, when can I come and fix it?”  She thought for a moment.

“First Wednesday after school?”

“I’ll be there.”  He nodded.  “You’re something special Elsa.  Thanks for everything.”  He added awkwardly. 

“I know.  And you’re most welcome.”  She turned back to the counter and Finn lowered his eyes thoughtfully and returned to the gang.

“Just telling her I’d be back in college.  I kinda told her might not be coming back.”  He said to their inquiring faces. 

“When?”  Archie asked.

“Oh.”  Finn hesitated.  He turned to Rae, “when we argued, I went to Elsa’s place after.”  He saw her scrunch her face up, clearly wondering why, “I ended up punching a hole in her wall.  I have to fix it.”  He added.

“Fucking what?’  Chop asked laughing.  Finn held up his hands, the slight scabs still visible on the knuckles.

“I were pissed off.  I knew where she lived cos I saw her bike.”  He tried to explain.  “I were a fucking mess.  She helped.”  He finished.  He thought about whether he should tell Rae everything that had happened but guilt hit his stomach so hard that he decided to stay quiet about it for now. 

“So what are we doing for New Year’s?”  Izzy changed the topic.

“Wait, aren’t we s’posed to be making Finn feel like shite?”  Chop asked.

“Already done it.”  Finn answered grumpily.

“Not nearly enough.” 

“Arch?’  Finn’s voice exposed how hurt he was by Archie’s words.

“That’s twice Finn.  Twice you’ve left without even telling me, your best mate.  The first time, I’d just come out.”

“Yeah but you had the rest of the gang.”

“You know Simmy belted me the other day?”

“Fucking what?” Chop stood up aggressively. 

“I needed me best mate.”  Archie continued.

“I’ll smash Simmy!”  Chop fumed as Izzy coaxed him to sit back down.

“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”  Finn felt terrible. 

“No you didn’t!”  Archie replied.

“I should have.”  Finn replied simply, accepting his guilt.  “It won’t happen again Archer, I’m sorry.”  Archie paused, still angry, but eventually nodded.

“Alright.”  He said begrudgingly.  Finn jumped up and gave him a hug.  “Leave off!”  He joked as Finn sat down in his lap. 

“New year’s now?”  Izzy asked hopefully. 

“Well whatever it is.  We’re doing it, all six of us together, right?”  Finn asked, still in Archie’s lap.  This was met with general agreement.

“I’m thinking London?”  Chop said excitedly.

“How would we accommodation in London so late?”  Chloe dismissed the idea.

“Well, me uncle’s got an apartment in Kensington.”  Chop said, “He don’t like visitors-”

“Well that’s gonna work out fine then!”  Rae laughed.

“He’s in hospital!  When I was in Sutherland for Chrissie, he gave me his keys, asked me to water his hibiscus while he were in hospital getting his hip done, won’t be home till the 3rd.”

“What’s a fucking hibiscus?”  Finn asked.

“It’s a plant.”  Archie answered. 

“What d’you say, the 6 of us head to London for New Year’s?”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Hanky Panky’ by Madonna _

 

Janice carried the last box into the lounge room. 

Most of her things were still in her house in Leeds.  She owned that house and hadn’t decided what to do with it yet. 

Her and Gary had agreed that she would rent his spare room for an unreasonably low cost, but she just couldn’t argue with a man who had such a cheeky grin.  She had kept protesting that he needed to charge her more, but those dimples would flash and he’d shake his head shyly.  Or was it slyly? 

“Those Nelson men.”  She sighed to herself.  She remembered that the first time she’d met Finn she had intended to take him home for the night, but had instead ended up talking about Rae all night. 

She’d met Gary when she’d helped Finn move his stuff back to Stamford.  He’d done it before he’d even talked to Rae about the possibility of them rekindling their relationship, so she hadn’t had the chance to meet Rae yet. 

Gary carried in the set of drawers she had brought and left them next to the boxes.

“Right well, we’ll just have to get Finn to help us take all these upstairs.”

“I can do it.”  Janice proffered.

“No.  No.  Miss Harcourt, I’ll get me son to do it.”  That dimpled smile, “He’s upstairs with Rae at the moment.”  Janice could hear music wafting through the ceiling from upstairs, “Might be a while,” He continued awkwardly, “Would you like a brew?”

“Yes thank you, and you can call me Janice, you’re letting me live in your home.”

“Oh it’s your home too, now.”  He bit his bottom lip and grinned, “Janice.”  He added.  She sat at the kitchen table and watched him put the kettle on to boil.  Her eyes dropped to his arse as he turned to the sink and she admonished herself.  She hated that kind of thing, guys were always looking at her.  Gary didn’t look at her the way other men did.  It was nice.  He was different somehow.  Like how he remembered her last name even though it was only said once in passing when she introduced herself to him.  Like how she never once saw him leering at her breasts or arse, but had caught a slight sly glance here and there that let her know that he wasn’t gay. 

There was a loud crashing noise from upstairs and Janice looked up at the ceiling.  Gary cleared his throat awkwardly as dust started to gently fall from the ceiling.  There was a loud ‘OH’ from upstairs followed by uproarious laughter and another bang.  Gary brought over the milk and sugar to the table.

“They might be a while.”  He repeated as the sound of multiple things hitting the floor upstairs was heard. 

 

 

Finn swept everything off his table and turned to Rae, frantically kissing her.  They’d been listening to music, slowly making out when Rae had moved to get more comfortable and fallen off the bed.  They had both started laughing, and as he helped her up she kissed him passionately, they had spun around in a tight embrace and banged into his wardrobe, knocking an assortment of sporting paraphernalia, trophies, old books and games off the top, the corner of a trophy hitting Finn on the head.  They’d kicked and stumbled their way through the junk, Finn tripping and they both nearly went over, Rae crying out loudly with mirth.  They laughed and kissed frenetically, travelling across the room until they bumped into the table, papers and pens tumbling to the floor, more giggles more kissing. 

Now she sat on the edge of the table, her bare legs wrapped around his waist as he slid inside of her, still laughing and stumbling over all the things on his floor. He took hold of her hips and they fucked, hard and fast, the table ramming hard into the wall with loud reverberating thuds every time he thrust into her. 

 

 

Janice’s eyes looked upward as the thudding noise started and Gary sat opposite her with his lips in a tight straight line as he poured the tea.  ‘OH MY GOD’ came a female voice from upstairs.  They heard a male voice, encouraging, joyous, but the words were not clear. 

“This Earl Grey?”  Janice asked as more dust fell from the ceiling.

“Ah yes.”  Gary answered and cleared his throat.

“My favourite.”

“I think he forgot you were moving in this morning.” Gary explained as another loud bang reverberated through the house followed by ‘FUCK’ a male voice in a bit of pain.  Then loud laughter, the rhythmic banging never stopping. 

“Well I did intend for it to originally be this afternoon.  Changing plans can be difficult for teenagers I suppose.”  She smiled as reassuringly as she could.  ‘DON’T STOP FINN!’

Janice cleared her throat this time.  And looked up at Gary, blushing furiously, his eyes downcast.  The urge to laugh rose in her throat and she pushed it down.

“You know, you raised a fine son.”  Gary started to laugh and Janice couldn’t help but join him. 

“Oh yes.”  Gary said as the banging intensified and a loud moaning could be heard.  ‘YES. YES!  THAT FEEL GOOD?  YEAH?!’ a male voice.  “As evidenced.”  They both started to laugh hard.  ‘FUCKING HELL FINN!’  The moaning again. 

“I mean it.”  Janice said once she got her laughing under control.  “He’s very compassionate and respectful.”  She tried to stop herself from laughing but couldn’t.  Gary joined in, both of them nearly crying with laughter, “He’s really kind.”  Janice said through her laughter.

“Yeah I’ve done a bang up job!”  Gary said doubling over with laughter.  Eventually they managed to settle down, still giggling Janice tried to continue comforting Gary’s embarrassment.

“You know he is a good lad.”

“I know.”

“He’s got great taste in music.”

“Ah,” Gary said delighted, “well I taught him everything he knows.”  The very obvious sound of a woman in orgasm rocked through the house.

“Everything?”  Janice asked and they started laughing again.  The thudding stopped and there was a much louder bang, another ‘OH’ and the rhythm started up again, just not as loudly.  They looked at each other.

“He’ll be a while, want to look at my record collection?” 

 

 

They had tumbled to the floor together, still kissing frantically, still laughing, still fucking.  When Finn came, he did so with an uncharacteristically loud, triumphant cry, laughter still on his lips.  

“You’re fucking brilliant!”  He panted loudly and gave a loud woot, both of them erupting into raucous giggles.  He leaned down to her, “Look at your sexy mouth.”  He said as he kissed her consummately.  He rolled to be lying next to her on the floor and she pulled a stapler out from under her.

“Ow.”  She pouted and he chuckled, kissing her again.  They lay there panting, their limbs tangled looking at the ceiling.  Finn glanced over and saw his alarm clock, upside down on the floor.  He reached over Rae and picked it up.

“Oh shit, Janice’ll be here in about 30 minute.”  He raised his eyebrows, “cutting it a bit fine!”  He grinned cheekily. 

“So who’s Janice?”

“Oh right!”  He’d asked Rae to come around and meet Janice, but they’d started making out instead and he’d gotten lost in her kisses.  “I met her in Leeds.  We did a lot of talking about you.”

“Me?”

“Aye.”  He started to gather clothes, “I just banged on about you all the time.  She’d always say the right thing to get me emotions going you know?  I actually punched the fence outside her brother’s pub about a hundred times.  Made me realise that I had to come back.  I was missing you too much.”

“You gotta stop punching stuff.”  Rae said lightly.

“Aye.”  Finn said with gravitas, “I do.  I think you’re right though.”

“Really?  Aren’t I always right?”

“Well you know sometimes.”  He teased.

“Oh right?”  She laughed

“Yeah sometimes you’re dead wrong.” 

“What was I right about this time?”  She ignored his last statement.

“I don’t know what to do with me feelings, so I do stupid shit.”

“Kester told me that you gotta learn to sooth yourself.  Like you was talking to yourself but as a child.”  Rae said trying to be helpful.  Finn sat quietly for a bit thinking.

“I’ll give it a go.”  He said honestly.  “Unless there’s some right mug hurting you, then I’ll cave his skull in.” 

“Alright.”  She shook her head at him with a big grin on her face.  A moment passed between them, where they looked into each other’s eyes and a sense of emotional urgency seeped through their veins.  Rae felt her lips twitching, wanting to say so much to him. 

“There’s still so much left to say.”  Finn whispered unexpectedly. 

“We got time.”  Rae touched his face and he kissed her palm, reaching out to stroke her hair.

“Yeah.”  He felt the happiest he’d felt all week, because he knew she was right.  His eyes fell to the necklace resting on her chest and smiled; they had lots of time. 

“What?”  She asked; he had that unfathomable look in his eyes again. 

“You make that necklace look more beautiful than it is.”  He kissed her lips passionately, as if he were in desperate need.  And then took her face between his hands and studied her face.  “You’re so beautiful Miss Earl.  Have I told you how lucky I am to have you?”

“No I don’t think you have.”  His intense gaze made her feel breathless.

“If won a million quid in the lotto but didn’t have you, I’d count myself as real unlucky.”  She smiled, “if I were a cat that fell a hundred floors and still landed on me feet alright, but I didn’t have you, I’d count myself very unlucky.”  Rae bit her bottom lip and smiled happily as he spoke, “if I were to get a contract playing with the English football team, but I didn’t have you, I’d think I were right unlucky.”  He kissed her forehead and stroked her hair gently.

“You make me feel like…” he paused, smiling wistfully, unable to find the words, his blinking slowed down as he took her in. 

“You make me feel.” 

 

 

Finn came down the stairs jauntily, humming a tune to himself and when he came around the corner to look into the lounge room, boxes everywhere, Janice and his dad sitting together looking at albums he froze, his mouth opened in mortification.

“Oh my fucking god.”  He breathed, “What the fuck are you both doing here?  How long have you been here?  Oh my god!”  His face turned crimson as Janice and Gary struggled to keep a straight face.  Rae walked in behind him, saw them and her eyes opened wide.

“How long have they been here?”  She mumbled to Finn as Finn continued to stare in horror at his Dad and Janice. 

“Long enough to know that you must be Rae.”  Janice said holding her hand out to shake.  Rae accepted the hand, still wide eyed and scarlet.  “It is so good to finally meet you.”

“Hi.”  Rae said awkwardly. 

“How much did you hear?”  Finn asked still alarmed.

“Finn!”  Rae hissed softly.

“About as much as the neighbours three streets away.”  Gary answered with a straight face. 

“Oh fuck.”  Rae breathed almost silently.

“Yes.”  Janice answered equally as straight faced, “Yes exactly.” 

“I think this calls for a bevvy.”  Gary went to the kitchen and came back with 4 beers.  “Shall we have a toast?”

“Yes.”  Janice said with sparkling eyes, “a toast to getting to know you.”  She paused, her smile radiant, “quite well.”  She held up her bottle.  Rae started to giggle, Janice cracked and laughed.  Gary kept a straight face for an admirably long time before he couldn’t help but laugh at his son’s horrified face. 

“Alright!”  Finn said after they’d laughed so hard and long that Janice and Rae could barely breathe.  “Jesus christ.”  He shook his head, a grin starting to appear.

“Let’s get these boxes upstairs!”  Gary handed his beer to Janice and Finn gave his to Rae.

“Right.”  Finn grabbed a box and headed upstairs.  Janice turned to Rae and motioned for her to come sit on the lounge together.

“So you met in Leeds?”  Rae asked, intensely curious about Finn’s time there. 

“Oh yes!”  Rae noticed how proper Janice spoke, and how tiny she was.  She had the most beautiful face, framed by soft curls in the most delicious caramel blond colour Rae had ever see.

_I wanted that hair colour, and the softness and shine of her hair._

_And her eyes were like these giant blue crystals._

_She were so beautiful it hurt to look at her._

_Why does Finn always have beautiful girls around him?_

_And she’s so small.  Like half me size, and two thirds me height._

_But I had noticed something that put a stone in the bottom of me tummy: she had the exact figure that Elsa had._

_Big boobs.  Big hips.  Tiny, tiny waist._

_Elsa might be twice the size of Janice, but she was just as beautiful, and it were because of that shape._

_I didn’t have that shape._

Rae felt the sense of inspiration that Elsa had given her, the feeling that one day she might wear those tight pants and red lipstick, she felt it all seep away from her, like colour being leeched out of material, leaving it a washed out grey. 

_I’ll always just be a blob with a gob._

“He came in every night, and drank pints and tore the beer mats into tiny little pieces.  He spent every night alone, looking very dejected.”  Janice smiled, “So I decided I’d cheer him up.” 

“He can be a grumpy sod can’t he?”  Rae joked.

“I don’t know if he was grumpy.  More miserable.”  Janice watched the way Rae lowered her eyes, “he was missing you.  And I didn’t find out till I went over to try and get him to have a roll in the hay with me.  But I didn’t stand a chance against his memories of you!”  She laughed merrily. 

“God, why would he choose me over you?”  Rae didn’t even realise she’d said the words out loud, and instantly felt herself blushing.  She looked away and sucked her top lip.

“Oh Rae, no!”  Janice took her hand.  “Why would you say that?”

“You’re so beautiful.”  Rae said softly wishing she were a thousand miles away. 

“Do you know, the first night I met Finn, I fell in love with you?”  Rae turned her confused face to Janice.  “We spent the whole night talking about you.  How could I not fall in love with you when I was hearing all about you from his perspective?  Seeing you through the eyes of someone who loves you so very much?”

“I must be pretty disappointing to meet in real life.”  Rae joked, oddly pleased, but not knowing what to say.

“But you are as beautiful as he described you.”

“Alright.”  Rae still didn’t know how to say.

“I’m sorry, I tend to gush over female beauty, I’m a painter, amongst other things, and the female form is often the subject of paintings.” 

“Not my form though!”  Rae joked.

“No, definitely your form.”  Janice disagreed.  Finn came back in the room and picked up a box, pausing to listen.

“Why would anyone paint me?”

“Are you serious?  Do you not see your own beauty?”  She stood up shaking her head, “I know someone who is far more gifted then me that’ll convince you.”  She went over to her boxes, found one of them marked ‘books’ and opened it. 

“Here we go, Peter Paul Rubens.”  She handed the book to Rae, Finn came over to see as Rae opened it.

“They’re all fat.”  Rae marvelled as she looked at the women.

“And beautiful, do you see?”  Janice’s eyes were alight with her passion for art. 

“But one guy painting a bunch a fat girls, don’t mean nought.”  Rae turned the pages nonetheless.

“No, not one,” Janice smiled, “historically, art has favoured a larger woman, the earliest figurative art, up to 40, 000 years old, is of larger women.  Many painters have chosen to paint women of a larger size because their bodies are like glorious poetry on the canvas.”  Janice’s eyes turned up to Rae’s face as she turned the pages.  “There’s so many artists both contemporary and old masters that would love to have an art model like you; Renoir, Titian”  Janice got on a roll and started to list artists off on her fingers, “Baldung, Lucian Freud, Botticelli, Bordon, Clarke, Rankin, Corinth, Donghi, Vecchio, Botero, Courbet, Picasso, Walter, Furini, Strozzi, Molenaer, Polance, Pascin, Rembrandt, Picot-”

“Alright!”  Rae stopped her.

“But I haven’t even finished the western world, and there’s a whole big planet of art out there.  I mean the continent of Africa has such wonderful artists and images of larger woman!”  She sighed wistfully, “There’s something so satisfying about committing the curves of a large woman to any medium.”  Finn leaned on the back of the lounge and reached over Rae’s shoulder to turn a page of the book, Rae looked back at his smiling face, he had a strange look in his eye.

“I just got the job curating the local community centre art gallery, it’s a little smaller than I’m accustomed to, but the local talent is fresh and raw, and I’m very excited.  I often run adult art classes, and I’m hoping to get them going here in Stamford.  Rae,” Janice paused, obviously nervous, “could you model for me?  If I get enough people to do a live drawing or preferably painting class?”

“No way!”  Rae answered horrified looking down at the naked women in Rubens’ paintings.

“It wouldn’t be nude.”  Janice assured her. 

“I’d take that class.”  Finn backed Janice, “I’d like to try and draw you.”  Rae turned her shocked eyes from Janice to Finn. 

“You know Finn, I think to do Rae’s form true justice, we’d need to use oil paints.”

“Oil paints?”  He asked uncertainly.

“I could teach you.”

_I didn’t hear the rest of the discussion._

_All I could hear was Liam’s words._

_‘we’re no oil paintings’_

_That’s what he’d said._

_But here were dozens, no hundreds of oil paintings, of fat girls._

_And that were just one artist._

_Oh shit.  I think I just agreed to do this._

_Fuck._

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Lightening Crashes’ by Live _

 

“Thanks for letting me do this Rae.”  Izzy said as she ran the measuring tape from Rae’s hip down to the floor. 

“S’ok.”  Rae tried to sound more comfortable than she was. 

“You’re so tall!”  Izzy laughed, double checking the measurement.  “Gonna need more material.  And Mrs Wheedon is already annoyed at me.”

“Why?”

“Had to get a plus-size sewing mannequin for this.”  Izzy said with no hint of concern, “apparently the school didn’t want to spend the money.”  Rae felt her face burning, “But I just reminded them that they got a boy mannequin for Chloe’s project and they shut up right fast!”  Izzy ended on a grin.  Rae couldn’t help but smile at her happy face. 

“You will keep these measurements to yourself, won’t you?”  Rae asked as Izzy slipped the tape around her hips.

“I have to show Mrs Wheedon, she has to see all my notes.  But I’ll make sure no one else see them Rae, don’t worry.  I wouldn’t want anyone to see mine!”  Izzy jotted down the numbers and then measured Rae’s waist. 

“Now don’t pull it in, ok?”  Izzy said as she looked at the number.

“I’m not.”

“Good, I want this to fit you perfect.  You’ll look so nice in what I’m thinking of making you.”

“Thanks Izzy.”  That smile again.

“We’ll have to lots of fittings.”

“I don’t mind.”  Izzy’s hands slipped the tape around her breasts.

“God I wouldn’t mind that!”  Izzy laughed as she read the measurement. 

“They’re better in theory than practice, Iz.”  And she pulled a face.

“What’s wrong?”

“Me boobs hurt a bit.”

“Probably due for your period.”  Izzy said as she started measuring Rae’s neck and arms. 

_Oh fuck._

_When did I last have a period?_

_Oh shit…_

_I’m on the pill, it’s fine._

_Oh._

_Oh but I keep forgetting to take ‘em properly._

_I mean honestly, how can they expect you to remember to take one of them every fucking day at the same fucking time?_

_It’s fucking ridiculous._

Rae contemplated the stupidity of the pill and how she really couldn’t be blamed for forgetting to take one on occasion, her face screwed up in thought.

“I think I got everything.”  Izzy jotted down the last number and looked happily in the book.  “You got a nice figure Rae.”  She pointed at the numbers, “see?”  Rae shook her head.

“Iz, a bunch o’ numbers don’t mean much to me.”

“I really want’a to start on this now.”  Izzy lamented, “I’m really looking forward to doing it.”

“Are you actually excited for school to go back?”

“I suppose.”  She looked at the clock, “I’m sorry to rush out, but I did promise to meet Chop.”

“Oh no, it’s fine Izzy, go!”  They shared a hug and Izzy grabbed her things, holding the book with Rae’s measurements protectively she bolted out the door with a final wave. 

_Oh fuck I might be pregnant._

The thought hit Rae suddenly.  And hard. 

She sat down on her bed and stared at the wall. 

She thought about calling Chloe. 

_No better make sure first.  Then call her._

She grabbed her bag and hurried down the stairs. 

_Oh god.  I never realised how long the walk to the shops was._

_I suppose I just go in to the chemist._

_I imagine that’s where you get tests from._

A rising panic starting to well up from her stomach but she refused to acknowledge it. 

_It’s nothing.  I’m just a little late.  And Dr Nick did say it might take a while for me cycle to settle down._

_But me cycle has been just fine._

_Until now._

_No.  It’s nothing._

_It’s fine._

_I’m fine._

Rae walked into the pharmacy and stopped.  Her mind blank.

_What am I even looking for?_

_Do they just sell those little sticks that you pee on?_

_How the fuck do you pee on a stick?_

_Oh my god, what if I am pregnant?_

_What the fucking fuck will I do?_

_Oh shit, put your hands on something solid Rae._

_I’m fine_

_I am fine_

_I_

_Am_

_Fine_

_***_

Finn hated doing the shopping, but there was literally no arguing with his father, who was in an oddly good but firm mood today.  It really was his turn to get some groceries, so he shouldn’t complain. 

_I wonder what Rae’s doing right now?_

_I wonder if she hanging about in that dressing gown o’ hers?_

He smiled stupidly as he looked down at the list.  It wasn’t too long, it’d take him about half an hour. 

_Maybe I could go for a quick visit afore I get to it?_

_Maybe she could come with me?_

_Bit of a boring date innit?_

His smile dropped a little and he looked up from the list and stopped walking.  And then a huge stupid smile spread out across his face.

“Speak of the devil.”  He said to himself.  Rae was walking, with purpose, into the chemist. 

He took a moment to admire her, the way her hair flew out behind her as she hurried, the shape of her legs, her face.  He thought of the way she sounded laughing. 

Smiling affectionately he followed Rae into the chemist.

 _Where’d she go?_  

He looked around.  He planned to come up behind her and kiss her on the back of the neck. 

_There’s my tall girl._

He grinned as he saw the top of her head above the tall shelves. 

He walked around the aisle-end, quietly approaching her, and stopped, his smile falling.

‘Rae?”  She started and turned to him, a guilty, ashamed look on her face, the pregnancy test in her hand.  His eyes fell to the test and then snapped back to her face, searching for the truth.

“Finn.”  She answered softly. 

They looked at each other, silently, a sense of foreboding growing between them.

_Say something Finn._

_Just open your fucking mouth._

“Are you…?”

_I can’t even say the word._

_Oh god, what if she is?_

_What the fuck will we do?_

“I don’t know.”  She swallowed hard, “I’m late.”

_Late?_

_Late?_

Finn dredged up all the things he knew about how this whole thing worked.

“Your period?”  He asked failingly.  She nodded.  He shook his head and looked back at the test.  “I thought you were on the pill Rae?”

“I might have forgot to take it a few times.”

_She sounds so sad._

_So sorry._

_She’s alone and scared._

_Say something Finn._

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Finn!”  She was saying, but he went to her and put his arms around her.

“No.  Don’t be sorry.  We’ll figure it out, alright?” 

_She’s shaking._

_Oh fuck I’m shaking._

“What do we need to do?”  He asked as he held her.

“I gotta do this test.”  Her voice was muffled by his chest. 

“Right.”  He looked at her, kissed her lips firmly, “Let’s go buy it then.”  She nodded and they walked to the counter.  Finn took the test from her and handed it to the cashier.  Rae squeezed his hand hard and kept her eyes down when she saw the way the cashier was looking at her. 

The cashier looked at the test and clucked judgementally.  Finn looked from the cashier to Rae and back. 

“What are you looking at her like that for?”  Finn asked coldly. 

“No reason.”  She replied and rung up the sale with a smug look of satisfaction.  Finn paid, took the bag and leaned over the counter.

“I hope it never happens to you.  A simple mistake, or accident, or god forbid, rape.  I hope it never happens to you so you don’t have to be judged by some smarmy git standing at a fucking checkout.”  He put his arm around Rae and led her from the chemist.

“Let’s go to my place?”  Finn asked her gently and she nodded. 

 

 

15 minutes later Finn was looking at the box and Rae was reading the instructions. 

“Right so…”  Rae sighed, “I pee on this, “she held up the stick, “we wait 5 minutes, and then we’ll know.” 

Finn bit the inside of his mouth and took the stick.  He saw the results window with no markings. 

_If we got a line in this little window.  We’re pregnant._

_Fuck._

_I’m not ready for this._

_Think about Rae, not yourself._

“Ok.”  He looked at the stick again, “do you need something to pee in, so we can-”

“Yeah if you got a little plastic cup or something?”  She sounded brave, almost completely fine.  But Finn could see her shaking.  He took her hands.

“Rae…”  The words stuck in his throat.

_What can I say?_

“What do we do if I am pregnant Finn?”  She asked, panicked.

“I’ll do whatever you say.”  He answered, thankful that she had spoken first, he was better at responding to what she said than thinking of what to say.

“What do you want to do with it if I am pregnant?” 

_What do I want?_

_What do I want?_

“It don’t matter what I want though, do it?  You’re the one that has to carry it or go through an abortion.  This is your choice Rae.  I’ll do whatever you want.”

_I want this to not be happening._

_I’m not ready._

_But it is happening._

The realisation galvanised him and he looked into her eyes as she kept speaking,

“I mean you’d be the dad, it’s as much your choice.”

“Dad.”  He said softly and looked away, needing to take a deep breath.  “I didn’t think I’d have to be thinking about this yet.”  He shook his head.

“I’m sorry.”  She lowered her eyes.

“Don’t be.  It’s probably more my fault than yours.”

“I missed the pill.”

“I should’a been wearing condoms.”

“I don’t want to use condoms with you.”  She shook her head, “I like being naked with you. I weren’t naked with…” She looked away and fidgeted, biting her lip.  “I like being naked with you.”  She finished softly. 

_I weren’t her first._

_Liam weren’t lying._

He looked at her beautiful, tear stained face, creased with worry and found that he didn’t mind that he wasn’t her first.  He didn’t mind if she’d had a 100 lovers before him; she was his girl now.  And that’s what mattered. 

But he did mind that Liam had ever touched her. 

“This is my fault.”  She shook her head, “I’m sor-”

“Don’t apologise Rae.  We both did it, it’s both out faults.  Alright?”  He answered firmly.  She nodded and sucked her bottom lip.  “I’ll get you a cup to pee in.” 

 

 

She sat down on the bed next to him and Finn set the alarm to go off in 5 minutes.  He tried not to look down at the stick in her hand as he scooted closer to her and laid his hand over her hand holding the stick, he put his forehead on hers.

“Rae,” he said softly, “you’re me girl, no matter what, alright?” 

“Alright.”  Her voice was higher pitched than normal, frightened.

“And I will do whatever you want or need me to do.  I mean that.”  He thought through all the possibilities of what might happen, “If you want’a be mad at me, for getting you into this mess, and want’a kick me out of your life, I’ll go – but I’d prefer it if you didn’t do that.”  He stroked her face, their foreheads still touching, “I’d much rather stay in your life.”  He said urgently.  She nodded and he continued, “If you want’a get an abortion, I’ll get the money together, you don’t need to worry about that, and I’ll come with you to the clinic, look after you after.  Or if you want’a put it up for adoption, I’ll sign the papers, no questions asked.  If you want’a keep it…”  He paused, licked his lips and took a deep breath, “I’d be honoured if you’d marry me.  Let me take care of both of you.” 

She sniffed, tears on her cheeks and nodded.

“Yes?”  He asked, not sure what she was saying yes to, his heart thumping in his chest.  She just nodded again, so he continued. “Whatever you need.  I’ll do it.  Anything for you Rae.”

_Tell her you love her._

_No._

_No, don’t you dare say it now._

_Don’t you dare let her think that you’re only saying it cos the shit’s royally hit the fan._

_When you say it to her Finn Nelson, you make sure she knows that the only reason you’re saying it is because it’s true._

He bit his bottom lip to silence himself. 

“Anything you need.  You’re my world Rae.”  He whispered.  She nodded again and they sat in silence, foreheads touching, him stroking her hair, his other hand on her hand, the stick just right there.

_I’m not used to Rae being so silent._

_It scares me._

The alarm went off and they both looked up, into each other’s eyes. 

_Tell her you love her, before either of you look at that fucking stick!_

_No Finn!  Do it right._

“You’re my world Rae.”  He repeated, “Anything for you.  Alright?”

“Alright.”  They both took a deep breath, he nodded to her and they turned their heads to the stick. 

_There’s a line there._

_I’m a dad._

_Shit._

_Ok._

_Ok._

_Ask her to marry you._

_Wait._

_Wait until you see what she wants to do._

_Oh god, telling me dad’s gonna be a delight._

_Oh fuck!  Telling Linda… oh shit._

He felt her breathing speed up, heard her starting to cry and embraced her. 

_Tell her everything’s alright._

_Tell her you’ll do whatever she needs._

_Just ask her to marry you._

_Why is she laughing?_

“Rae?”  He asked confused as he saw her laughing, tears on her face.

“It’s fine!”  She laughed emotionally, “it’s negative.”  He scrunched up his face and looked back down at the test.

“But there’s a line.”  She held up 2 fingers to him.

“Two lines for a positive” She explained.  “I am so fucking happy!”  She leaned over and grabbed his face, kissing him hard.  He laughed softly, not sure what he was feeling.

“Well that’s a relief.”  He said faintly. 

“You alright?”  She asked, worried.

“I guess…”

_Am I alright?  What’s wrong with me?_

_Didn’t I just dodge a fucking bullet?_

“I guess I got myself all ready to be a dad.”  He shook his head and actually laughed, “I were so sure it were gonna be positive.”  He felt the tension finally leaving his body, “I am glad that it’s ok.”  He said finally, “I’d much prefer to be doing these tests in a couple of years time!”  He felt his body shaking as the last of the nervous tension left him. 

“Me too.”  Rae said and laid down on his bed with a sigh.  He leaned over and kissed her. 

“I suppose I better start using condoms.”  He said.

“No.”  Rae answered firmly, “I’ll remember the pill.  Get scared like that… I’m not gonna forget it!”  She laughed. 

“You sure?”

“I like being completely naked with you.  I like there being nothing between us.”  She tried to make him understand how important this was to her.  How different, complete opposite, he was to her other sexual experience. 

“Alright.”  He kissed her deeply and they laid together, they bodies entwined, their foreheads touching, saying nothing, just being together. 

“So you thought it were positive when you saw that one line?”  Rae said after a long while.

“Yeah.”  He said softly. 

“You handled that well.”  Rae said with a look of admiration.

“I said I’d do whatever you needed, I did mean it.”

“So if I’d wanted to keep it.”

“I’d be putting a ring on your finger.  If you’d let me.”  He added.

“I don’t wanna get married cos I’m pregnant.”  She sighed, “I’d rather know that…” She looked down, biting her bottom lip, “whoever it is marrying me,” she looked back up, “they’re doing it cos they love me.  And for no other reason.”

“I understand.”  He kissed her slowly, tenderly, “I’ll keep that in mind.”  He whispered before kissing her again. 

“December has been…. Quite a month.”  Rae shook her head, “I’m exhausted.”

“Well, it’ll be January soon enough.”  He soothed indulgently.  “Big party in London to top it all off!”

“Chop’s getting e for New Year’s isn’t he?”

“Yeah, I think.”

“D’you want’a do it?”  He shrugged and looked at her lips.  “You want another kiss don’t you?”  He nodded his head in answer to her question.

“Always.”  He pressed is lips against hers and let himself fall into the timeless land that existed only when their lips met. 

Sometime later they heard his dad come home and call up the stairs for Finn.  Eventually he got himself up and gathered all the pregnancy test paraphernalia together.  “I’ll get rid of the evidence.”  He walked to the door and turned back, “in a bit, I’m gonna have to get some stuff at the shops, you want’a come with or stay here?”

“Can I stay here?  Listen to your crap reggae?”  He smiled.

“Aye, that you can girl.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘In The Meantime’ by Spacehog _

 

Rae and Finn were again driving alone, while Chop, Archie, Izzy and Chloe travelled in Archie’s car.  Rae had been worried about taking her car to London, but Finn had assured her it’d be ok, and she had relented.  They were heading to London and it was finally the last day of 1996.

Rae was driving and Finn sat casually, one foot up on the dash, his knee under his elbow, a cigarette dangling from his fingertips, the other hand tracing words on her thighs, crawling higher and higher up.

“Stop it, I’ll crash.”  She didn’t take her eyes off the road, except to change gears.  Finn had managed to stop panicking every time that happened.  He still tensed up though every time.  He flicked his butt out the window and turned in earnest to Rae, watching the way she moved as she concentrated on driving. 

He thought back to the first time he’d started tracing words on her.  They’d been at the pub, it had been noisy, they’d both been early for once, so it had just been the two of them, and they were leaning in to talk, to hear each other, laughing, joking.  And he had so desperately wanted to kiss her, to touch her, to taste her, to stroke her skin.  And before he knew it his fingers were on her bare arm.  She’d looked at him wide eyed and he’d stammered something out about how he and Archie used to have a secret language (true), and they’d trace words on each other (false).  She’d smiled and he’d traced out ‘ _want to do it?_ ’ 

He hadn’t meant have a secret language, but he knew she’d think he did. 

He chuckled and she turned her face slightly towards him, keeping her eyes glued to the road.

“What you laughing at?”

“Do you know I only started the secret language thing as an excuse to touch you?”  He grinned devilishly and bit his bottom lip.  His eyes travelled up and down her body, “god I wanted to touch you so bad!”  He laughed.  “It were like I was a virgin all the time I were so desperate for you.”  He looked at her, his fingers tracing along her underwear line, “still am.”

“I knew you was lying when you said you traced words on Archie!”

“Archie would’a jumped out his skin if I done that!”  They laughed, “I just touched you, I didn’t meant’a, just happened, so I made up a story.  And you seemed ok with it.”

“Of course I was!  I wanted you in my vagina!”  Finn laughed loudly.  “Every time you traced words on my thighs I wanted you to get your hand up higher!”  Finn cupped her vagina through her pants.

“Like this?”  He leaned over and kissed her neck.

“Stop it!”  She laughed.  He withdrew his hand sulkily, but let it linger on her thigh. 

“I didn’t mean have a secret language when I asked you if you wanted to do it.”  He said with a cheeky grin. 

“Finnley!”  She admonished.

“I’d been trying to get in your pants for months before we got together.”  He shook his head, “I just had no idea how to handle you.”  He raised his hand up her thigh again, “You didn’t fall for any o’ my charms.”  He raised his eyebrows.

“I didn’t know brooding grumpily in a corner were a charm.”  She quipped and he grinned.

“It worked afore you.”  He shrugged, “Not that I were trying afore you.  Not really.”

“So you’re telling me, that you tried to get me?”

“Before your mum’s wedding I thought I were maybe 60% there.  And I were ready for the hard slog to a hundred.” 

“Oh really?  And then I went and ruined it?”

“Oh aye!  Ruined my long, slow seduction.  Didn’t even get to use my secret weapon proper.”

“Ah yeah?  What’s that?”

“My superior music knowledge.”  He gave her a teasing smile and she narrowed her eyes at him, trying to still look at the road. 

“I wanted to put my fingers higher on your thighs too.  Kept creeping slowly higher, waiting for you to tell me to stop.”  He blushed, “every time I’d inch so slightly higher.”  He groaned throatily, “and fuck I’d go home and think about it nonstop.  You made me crazy.”  He shook his head, “still do.”  He grinned as he traced dirty messages on her thighs.

“Well I, for one, am shocked Finnley.”  She answered haughtily and he groaned again, his fingers tracing higher.  She took her eyes off the road and looked at him, “shocked.”  He watched the side of her face as she drove, leaning further over the gear box, his hand creeping up to her breasts.

“Did you ever catch me looking at ‘em?”  He asked.

“No actually.”  She said honestly.  He unbuttoned her shirt, her white singlet underneath thwarting his efforts to get at her skin.  He groaned and she tried to keep focussed on driving.  He leaned up to her neck again to kiss her and accidentally leaned on the gear box, crunching the gears, making the car backfire and splutter.

“Oi!”  She snapped halfway between genuine admonishment and laughter.

“I’ll behave.”  He said with exaggerated grumpiness.  He leaned back in his chair as he changed the gear back for her.  They listened to the radio in happy silence for a while.

“Oi what was that?  Turn it up!”  Rae suddenly said, urgently.  Finn turned the radio up and listened as the music news report continued. 

“Oasis are back in the recording studio after a brief spilt earlier this month”

_And everything were right with the world again._

_Finn and me were together, we was happy again.  The gang were all going ok.  Me mum was ok, little Aiesha was settling down.  And I were ready for college._

_I felt it in me bones – 1997 were gonna be different.  It were gonna be better._

Rae smiled and looked at Finn from the corner of her eye, he was looking at the radio, a slightly sad look on his face. 

“Jeff Buckley.”  Rae acknowledged the song, “can’t argue with Jeff Buckley.” 

Finn looked up at her with a huge smile, still sad.

“That’s exactly what I think.” 

“I quite like this one though.”  Rae said, “something about his voice in it.”

“You know, I used to listen to this every night at the pub in Leeds.”  He said softly.  Rae stayed silent, not sure what to say, and hoping he’d tell her more about his time in Leeds.  After a time of silence she decided that he wasn’t going to talk.

“What were it like in Leeds?”  She prodded.

“There was no colour.”  He said softly, “And no taste, like I mean food all tasted like nothing.  I were pretty down.  I just went to work, and to the pub.  And I were always alone at the pub.  I didn’t have any mates.  But the only person I missed were you.  I thought…”  He paused listening to Buckley’s soulful voice raise in heart-wrenching sorrow, “I thought that I’d grow up, that I’d get over you.  But the longer I stayed away, the more I realised I weren’t nothing without you.”

“Is that why you wrote me?”

“Aye.”  He looked at his hands, “did you miss me?” 

“I did.  So much.  I kinda spiralled downward after you left.  I kept saying to myself that you were better off without me.  That you left cos you were over me.”

“I wanted you to ask me to stay.”

“On some level I knew it.  But I just couldn’t believe it.  And I knew that I couldn’t… I couldn’t be what you wanted.”

“But you are what I want.”

“But I couldn’t get naked.”

“I would have waited as long as it took.”

“It weren’t fair to you.”  Finn bit the inside of his mouth and fidgeted with the hem of his shirt, he saw Rae’s white knuckles and knew she was upset.

“I’m gonna say this, even though I know it’ll upset you, cos I don’t want this to happen again.”  Rae nodded that she understood, “it were far more unfair for you to make that decision for me.”  He paused giving her time to digest that, “it were far more unfair and painful for you to end it with me and not tell me why than to make me wait a hundred years to have sex with you.  Do you understand?”  He paused, watched her suck her bottom lip and nod.  “I’m sorry that hurt you, but leaving me, is far worse, than waiting for you, or dealing with your stuff or anything else you can throw at me.  And I need you to know that, to understand it, ok?  Not being with you is far worse than anything you think you can do to me.”  He saw the tear on her cheek, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.  I made a mistake that I won’t make again.”  She said softly.  “And you don’t have to be sorry.  I’m sorry.”

“Well we’ve both fucked up.  Me most recently.”  He smiled wanly.

“S’alright, I forgive you.”  Finn felt strangely lighter.

“Same.”  He put his hand on her cheek, grazing her soft skin with the back of his knuckles, “I forgive you.” 

“Kester’d be proud of us.”

“Fuck Kester, I’m proud of us!”  They laughed.  Finn lit up a cigarette and checked the map.  “D’you want me to quit?”  He asked as he checked their location.

“No it’s fine.”

“It’s not gross?  You know, ashtray mouth?”

“Kissing you could never be gross.” 

His grin showed that her words alleviated his concern. 

“Left up here.”  He pointed to the road and Rae felt her nerves heighten.

“Can we find a place to pull over and you drive in London proper?” 

“Yeah.”  They drove in silence for a while.

“So you didn’t like it in Leeds.”

“No.  But it were good meeting Janice.”

“She’s really nice.  Odd, but nice.”

“I went to Leeds again to see her, not to leave again, I were always coming back.  I just wanted to go to the pub again.  It were that pub, and banging on to Janice, that helped me realise that I had to come back to Stamford in the first place.  I mean…” He paused and gave a sad chuckle, “I knew the minute I left your house I should turn around and go back.  But it were that pub that made me do it.  So I knew it’d help me figure shit out this time.  Good pub.  Cheap pints.”

“When did you decide to actually move back to Stamford?”

“When you asked me if you was gonna be an annoying big sister.  I mean as soon as I saw you in the hospital, I knew I had to come back.  But I decided that it were gonna be that night I’d move back, right then, when I told you, you’d be annoying.  I just knew I couldn’t be away from you one day more.”

“You actually moved that night because I’m annoying?”

“Aye.”  He grinned cheekily, “See how annoying y’are?”  He nodded when she threw him a glare, “I had no choice, I had to!  After I took you home, I drove back to Leeds on me bike.  Luckily Janice were still at the pub, helping her brother out.  She put me stuff in her car and I came home.  I’ll miss that pub.” 

“Take me to see it?”

“Ok.”  He nodded.  “In couple of weeks maybe?”

“Yeah.”

“Pull over here, here’s good.” 

They swapped seats and Rae looked at the map and then up at the digital clock on the dash.

“We’re gonna get there before Chop!” 

“Well, let’s take a detour then.  When I were little, me mum and dad would go for drives in the country with me, and we’d play ‘left or right’.  Basically, every time we got to an intersection, I got to pick left or right, and we’d keep driving, for hours, until I got bored.  We’d end up in the strangest places.”  His voice was sentimental and his smile was melancholy.  “Wanna play it Miss Earl?”  She nodded thoughtfully.

“So any intersection?”

“Aye.”

“What about roundabouts?”

“You have’ta pick which exit before we get on.”

“So I’d just say like, 3rd exit?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright.  Left!”

 

 

Four and a half hours later Finn and Rae pulled up to the Kensington apartment.

“Well this is bloody posh.”  Rae said pulling a face.  Finn raised his eyebrows agreeing. 

When they walked through the front door, a pile of water was around the base of the hibiscus in the entrance room. 

Chop had watered the hibiscus. 

After a quick hello to the gang, with a

“The fuck have you been?  It takes less than 2 hours to get here?”  From Chop,

They traipsed up to their room and collapsed into bed together.

It was 4pm, and they’d have to head out soon to get a great location for New Year’s, but they figured they still had time to fool around. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Setting Sun’ by Chemical Brothers _

 

The excitement was palpable.  Rae looked around the streets.  She’d never seen so many people in her life.  Goths, punks, Indie kids, sexy ladies, bears all mingled with men in suits, women on brick sized mobile phones and parents strolling around with prams.  Rae loved London so far.  There were so many people, she thought she should be panicking with the crowds, and how far she was from home, but no one was looking at her, no one cared that she was a fat girl with a fit guy; she’d already seen a semi naked fat girl with a thin guy in black leather underwear, a black mask and a dog lead.  Somehow she felt at home here.  Finn held her hand, a grin on his face as they weaved through the forming crowds.

The bass was reverberating through their hearts as they headed further into the city. 

Chop motioned for them all to gather round before it got too crowded and too loud.  He opened his hand and 6 pills sat on his palm. 

“Ecstasy kids!”  He said, pleased with himself. 

Rae and Finn exchanged a glance and each took one.  Archie hesitated before picking his up, Chloe took hers and swallowed it instantly.  Chop swallowed one and put the other on Izzy’s tongue. 

“And second serves for later.”  He produced another 6 pills, each of them pocketing their pills; Finn stowing Rae’s as well as his.

“Let’s try and stay together motherfuckers!”  Chop yelled over the grinding music.  Finn smiled and put the small blue pill on Rae’s tongue.  She returned the favour.  They swallowed, kissed and followed Chop into the Brixton Academy, Chop producing the tickets for the bouncer. 

The first thing Rae noticed was the floor sloping down towards the stage area, she felt drunk already trying to keep her feet on the crowded dance floor.

The music was deafening and impossible to resist.  Rae thought of the rave they’d been too.  Finn was dressed the same, white singlet, jeans, whistle.  But this time it was so different.  He was there with her this time.  And she was in her red dress, at his request.  What she hadn’t told him was that she was wearing no underwear.  She knew she didn’t have long before the ecstasy hit them.  He already had his hands all over her, a satisfied grin on his face.  She motioned for him to come closer and whispered her secret into his ear.  He froze, then slowly started to dance again as he turned his face to look at her, biting his bottom lip.

“You saucy minx.”  He said with admiration and desire.  She grinned impishly, pleased with the effect it was having on him. 

And then the rush hit her.  The euphoria, the joy, she felt her temperature rising, and she reached for Finn. 

They danced, his hands snaking under skirt, their mouths hungry for each other, their bodies grinding together in time to the music. 

Rae raised her hands above her head and threw her body into the music rhythmically, her hair flying around her face.  Finn watched her lustily, running his hands from her hips to her breasts, the crowds jostling around them.  He pulled her to him, feeling her arse through the smooth material of the dress, knowing it was bare under there. 

“You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”  He groaned his fingers feeling like he could feel every cell in her body, pure exhilaration coursing through his veins.  Everywhere they touched felt instantly erotic, instantly sensitive.  Their lips craved each other, their hands had a major yen for the other’s body. 

Only this moment existed.  Only now, in each other’s arms, everything feeling amazing, elation in their lungs, music pumping through their souls. 

Rae had never felt such a complete sense of happiness, wonderment, and love for everyone and everything.  Especially Finn. 

They kissed, Finn muttering beautiful things to her, their hands never stopped touching each other and they danced. 

They barely noticed chop and Izzy doing much the same thing a few metres to the left, or Archie, who had found two male companions to dance with, or Chloe drawing a crowd of horny lads. 

It seemed like only minutes had passed, Finn in a near insane state of horniness for her near naked body, Rae rapturously gyrating to the music, when the countdown began. 

Finn, took his lips off Rae’s in surprise.

9

8

They screamed along

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Finn’s lips were on hers before she could finish screaming out the words.  His hands were under her skirt again.

“You’re tryna kill me aren’t you?”  He moaned throatily in her ear.  She felt his fingers slide between her labia, his mouth on her neck.

Rae felt instantly on the verge of orgasm, her whole body was singing with ecstasy and Finn knew it.  He pulled her closer, so that no one could see what he was doing and slid his fingers inside of her his thumb stimulating her clitoris, his mouth devouring hers. 

She came loudly, in the middle of the Brixton Academy night club, crowds pressing in around her, euphoria making every sensation a thousand times stronger.  He tasted his fingers and groaned again.

“Let’s go home and fuck.” She looked into his eyes, his pupils hugely dilated.  She teased him, her hand going down his pants and rubbing his erect cock.

“Let’s dance.”  She tormented him, rubbing herself against him, knowing what she was doing to him. 

The music sounded so good, and it felt like they’d be able to dance forever.

Chop crashed into them moments later.

“You seen Arch?”  He laughed pointing towards the wall where Archie was leaning, another guy kissing him, his hand in Archie’s pants. 

“YEAH ARCHIE BOY!”  Finn yelled out, unheard over the thudding bass line.  Chop, Finn and Izzy cheered Archie on but Rae noticed that she couldn’t see Chloe. 

“Your pants are undone!”  Chop laughed and zipped Finn’s fly for him.

“Thanks man!”  Finn laughed.  Rae looked around, panic starting to rise in her chest. 

And then she saw Chloe, a guy roughly pulling her around.  She pushed him and tried to keep dancing but he grabbed her hard and started kissing her.  Rae started off towards Chloe.

“The fuck?’  Finn took a moment to get his head straight enough to follow, Chop and Izzy close behind. 

“Get your hands off her!”   Rae yelled at him, pulling his hand off Chloe.

“Hey fuck off dyke!”  He yelled back, pulling away from Rae and grabbing Chloe hard around the waist.

“Fuck off!  She don’t want you!”  Rae yelled as Finn finally caught up with her.

“No it’s fine!”  Chloe suddenly said. 

“See, it’s fine. Now fuck off!”

“Who you telling to fuck off?”  Finn asked aggressively, but Chop pulled him back by the belt on his jeans. 

“Chlo?”  Rae asked, everything was hazy, every light had an infinite amount of cells and moving parts, focussing on her was both intensely easy and insanely hard. 

“I’m fine.  I want’a fuck!”  She laughed.

“She wants to fuck!”  Chop cheered, pulling Finn around, “everything’s fine!” 

“You sure?” Rae yelled over the music.  Chloe nodded, and the guy pulled her away by the wrist.  Rae watched her leaving, not sure how she felt. 

“Oh Shit!”  Chop noticed Izzy lost in the crowd and went back to get her.  Finn put his arms around her waist.

“What just happened?”  He asked in her ear.

“I dunno.”  She turned back to him, determined to put it out of her mind.  The music easily started to creep back into her bones and she felt Finn’s hands starting to explore under her skirt again. 

The euphoria quickly returned, all thoughts of Chloe completely leaving her mind, her body quickly loosening up again, Finn’s intentions once again becoming the most important thing, his hard cock pressing against her through their clothes as they moved together, as one, with the music, his mouth always on her; her lips, her skin, biting the sleeves of her dress to move them aside.  She unzipped his pants again, finding his cock hot and throbbing with desire. 

“Let’s go and fuck.”  He moaned urgently.

“Let’s stay.”  She teased.

“Alright.”  He said and he grabbed her arse hard pulling her towards a wall.  They pushed through the crowds, Finn’s hands never leaving her body.  When she banged up against the wall, Finn took no time in lifting one of her legs up and wrapping it around his waist, and in almost the same movement thrusting into her.  Rae threw her head back in carnal revelry and saw all the people dancing around her, oblivious or uncaring that she was being fucked against a wall amongst the thousands of them. 

Her insides felt alive, each thrust bringing heightened euphoria and a sense of orgasming.  Finn was grunting loudly with pleasure, but it could barely be heard; the music pumped louder and louder.  He fucked her in time to the driving rhythm until her fingers reached out and touched his fingers.  Then they were caught up in how magical every sensation was, and slowed down, focussing on every slight movement of their sex. 

She kissed him, her heart swelling with love for him, and focussed on his face.  How she could see every pore, every freckle, every molecule of his face. 

She felt like she was coming constantly, with every thrust, and her legs were like jelly from the pleasure quaking through her body.

It took Finn a surprisingly long time to cum.  He’d felt like he was on the verge of coming from the moment he’d thrust into her.  It had been the most blissful, hedonistic experience he’d ever had and when he finally did topple off the cliff into orgasm he could barely keep himself standing the waves of pleasure were so strong. 

When he finished, she zipped his pants up for him and they danced again, Finn still keeping his hands all over her, Rae barely noticing the sticky mess dripping down her thighs. 

The very first chorus of dawn could be heard when Finn and Rae stumbled through their bedroom door.  Finn collapsed on the bed and Rae climbed atop him.  In no time he’d unzipped his pants and they rode out the end of their high fucking wildly before collapsing into a deep, sound and exhausted sleep. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Violet’ by Hole _

 

Chloe opened her eyes slowly, the brightness made her stomach churn and the dull ache on her head scream.  She groaned to herself and slowly sat up.  She was alone in the hotel room.  The whole room was a mess.  She looked down at herself. 

Her shirt was torn, her left breast was popped out over the top of her bra, but the right was still in the cup.  Her skirt was up around her waist, her underpants across the room, torn. 

There was a bite mark on her left breast, bruises on her thighs.  And a sticky half-dried mess between her legs. 

She stumbled out of the bed, images of the previous night flashing in her mind. 

She walked to the window and looked out.  A busy London road.  She had to get back to Rae; she’d help her clean up.  Help her get the morning after pill. 

She went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror.  Her hair was a wild mess, her ponytail half pulled out. 

She remembered him pulling her hair violently while he fucked her from behind.  Remembered egging him on to do it harder.  Harder, until it didn’t hurt anymore. 

She sat on the toilet and cleaned herself as much as she could using the sink, not wanting to shower in case someone came in. 

She grabbed some toilet paper and started to wipe the mascara streaks off her face, noticing a slight bruise down the side of her face she sighed.  Smoothing out her hair she winced at how sore her scalp was. 

“Same shit.  Different year.”  She said to her reflection before she walked out to the bedroom and grabbed her underpants and shoved them in her handbag, fixed her clothes as best she could and headed for the door. 

As her fingertips touched it, the door swung open.

“Babe!”  The man said as he walked in and grabbed her around the waist.  “I just had to go get me mate, he didn’t believe that bitches as freaky as you existed.”  He kissed her neck violently and Chloe went limp, letting him. 

“You up for a spit roast?”  The second man said, easily in his 40s. 

“Alright.”  Chloe answered her dead, emotionless eyes turned to look at the ceiling as they took hold of her and started pulling at her clothes.  She went limp, like a ragdoll, and felt nothing.  She felt like she was looking on, impassively, as if what was happening, wasn’t happening to her; it wasn’t her body they were brutalising.  It wasn’t her.

 

 

 

 

_ ‘100%’ by Sonic Youth _

 

Rae scrunched her eyes up at the light.

“It’s too bright.”  She complained as she made tea.  Chop, Izzy and Archie sat at the table, Izzy’s face on the cool surface.  Finn stumbled into the room grumbling and kissed her neck before looking in the fridge. 

“My throat is killing me.”  Archie’s voice cracked, still sore from the nights revelries.  “It’s like there’s a hard bit of ice stuck near me vocal chords.”

“Might be food.”  Izzy mumbled from the table top.  “Have something to drink, it’ll wash it down.”

“Nah I’ve tried that.”

“Try food?”  Chop asked, he was handling the morning the best.

“That didn’t work either.”  He tried clearing his throat.

“Oh god.”  Izzy groaned, “maybe it’s evil food and it’ll be stuck there forever!”  She joked, her voice still slightly slurred. 

“That’d explain why it’s just staying there.”  Archie went along with the joke.

“Maybe Satan spunked in the back of your throat Archibald.”  Rae said as she sat down with a brew.

“Clearly.”  He answered sarcastically.

“Does Satan’s spunk work the same way as normal semen?”  Izzy asked raising her head from the table.

“Yeah, there’s a point.  Who’s to say there isn’t a baby growing in your throat, right now Arch?”  Rae asked in a matter of fact tone.

“Yeah but how the fuck did an egg get up there?”  Finn joined in as he lit a cigarette.

“Who says Satan’s semen needs an egg?”

“Right, time to call an abortion clinic.”  Izzy giggled, “do you think they’d be ok with getting a devil baby out of a gay man’s throat?”

“Double dare ‘em.”  Rae laughed. 

“That always work, good thinking.”  Archie and Chop shook their heads at the girls as they laughed.

“Of course, we just all need to know how did Satan’s spunk, get into Archie’s throat?”  Finn asked, thinking about the guys they’d seen him with last night and gave Archie a meaningful look.

“Sod off.”  Archie answered with a grin.

“He’s Satan.”  Rae answered, “He’s pretty much a fucking wizard.  He can do whatever he wants.”  That started Izzy giggling again.

“Do you know, Devil Spunk would make a good name for a band.”  Chop suddenly said.

“That’s so metal.”  Archie droned and drank some water.

“But really not.”  Finn laughed.

“I’m thinking 5 piece classical music band.”  Rae mused.

“Nah.  All girl pop punk band.”  Chop decided.  “Izzy’s lead singer.”

“Would we be doing gigs in Archie’s throat?”  She grinned.

“Yeah, huge gigs.  With a keytar.”  Chop laughed and kissed her. 

“Keytar?”  Archie shook his head disgusted, “glad you can laugh when I feel so shite.”

“Do you need a doctor?”  Izzy turned her worried eyes to him.

“No.  I need to pass out.”  Archie made a face, “I’m outraged that I feel so shite.  My face feels literally like crap.”

“Maybe Satan’s baby has been born now and he’s living in your face?”  Izzy joked.

“Do we need to amputate your face Arch?”  Rae asked, poking his cheek.

“Yes.”  Archie said and put his face down on the table

“Oh that’s shite…” Rae answered, “Goodbye Archie’s face.”

“Oh well I’ll get a new one.”  He moaned, “One that Satan’s spawn isn’t taking an endless shite in.”

“Hey, where’s Chloe?”  Izzy mumbled and looked towards the bedrooms.

“She didn’t come back last night.”  Archie answered.  They were sharing a room.

“I shouldn’t of let her go off with that guy.”  Rae groaned with worry.

“It’s not your fault, you can’t control what she does.”  Finn soothed.

“Yeah, if she want to go fucking guys, it’s her business.”  Chop kept his eyes on the table, “at least we know she’s fine after Sutherland.”

“No but she’s not Chop.”  Rae said seriously, “It takes time to get better.  There’s no magic solution, nothing’s easy.  You just have to work hard at it.”

“I know.”  He said in a voice that denoted that he actually didn’t know.

“Guys, I think she’s in trouble again.”  Rae said gravely, “I used to hurt myself, and I think Chloe… I think Chloe fucks guys in the same way.”

“She’s doing it to hurt herself?”  Izzy muttered.

“Why would she do that?”  Archie raised his head off the table.

“I dunno.”  Rae said, feeling all their eyes on her.”  I guess you get used to pain and you don’t know how to be without it… or everything hurts so much, that this type of pain numbs it all out…”

They were silent, considering what Rae had said.

“So what do we do for our Chlo?”  Chop asked.

“I dunno.”  Rae fretted, “We have to wait for her to get back.  Then I’ll talk to her… see if she ok.”

“What about an intervention?”  Chop asked, “like with the tomato sauce bottle?”  Rae furrowed her eyebrows and Chop’s suggestion with confusion. 

“Um… I’ll let you know.” 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’ by Smashing Pumpkins _

 

Rae arched her spine, her head thrown back, barely audible gasps escaping her throat as Finn greedily licked her clitoris, groaning in response to her body’s cues. 

Rae felt herself peaking, she grabbed the pillow and bit into it as she felt her orgasm coming.

There was a timid knock on the door. 

Rae felt the ecstasy ebbing.  Finn ignored the door and grabbed her arse, tipping her pelvis up to his mouth and kept going.  

The door knock again. 

“Fuck.”  Rae panted, and then louder, “who is it?”  Finn slipped a finger inside of her and stroked her insides, seeking out the sensitive spots he knew made her cum quickly.  She whimpered in response.

“Can I speak to you Rae?”  It was Izzy.  “It’s important.”  She sounded scared. 

“Oh fuck.”  Rae groaned in frustration and Finn knew it was a lost cause.  He sat up, kissed her mouth hard.

“To be continued girl.”  He said in a low urgent voice.  He got up and tried to walk it off, grabbing some pants while Rae quickly dressed and opened the door.  Izzy had her hand over her mouth, her face was white and terrified.

“I’m sorry guys, but… Rae can I talk to you?”  Finn gave a tight smile but didn’t turn to her; the bulge in his pants was too obvious. 

“It’s fine Iz.”  He said kindly, only a slight hint of sexual strain in his voice. 

“What is it?”  Rae hiding her frustration only slightly less well.  Izzy took Rae’s hand and led her from the room.  Rae looked over her shoulder at Finn, who rolled his eyes in frustration as she disappeared from view. 

Izzy, her hand firmly over her mouth led Rae up to the shared bathroom, pulled her in and closed the door.

Immediately Rae saw blood in the sink.  A lot of blood.

“Izzy?”  Rae asked, starting to feel afraid.  Izzy took her hand from her mouth and smiled, more a grimace, filled with blood.  “Oh my god!”  Rae said.  Izzy started to cry.

“I don’t know what’s happening.”  She whimpered, “Can you look?”  She opened her mouth and Rae looked back at the sink.  That was a lot of blood, with a bloody toothbrush dropped in amongst it.  She turned back to Izzy.

“Maybe it’s a cut?”  She soothed as she tried to look into Izzy’s bloody mouth.  “Have some water.”  Rae grabbed the cup and filled it with water, “spit it out.”  Izzy did and Rae looked again, “it’s your gums, Izzy.”  Rae said as she moved the angle of Izzy’s mouth to get better light.  “All of your gums are bleeding.” 

“I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before.”  Izzy’s voice was high and horrified.  “What do I do?” 

“I’ll take you to a doctor.”  Rae answered. 

“We can’t let Chop know.”

“Why?”

“He’ll panic.”  Izzy explained fondly.  Rae smiled wanly.

“Alright.  Well we’re here till the third, so it’ll have to be a doctor here.”  Rae considered, “we can send the boys off to look at sporting sights or something yeah?”  Izzy nodded in reply, her lips firmly closed.  “We just have to get Chop out of the house without seeing this.”  Rae looked at the bloody sink then back to Izzy’s teary face.  “It’ll be fine Izzy!” 

 

 

In the end Chop hadn’t been suspicious of Izzy staying in bed, feigning hangover blues.  He’d kissed her forehead, told her he loved her, told Rae to look after her and left with the lads. 

Finn had been more cluey, asking her what was wrong in an urgent whisper.  She hissed back that she’d tell him later. 

“That’s not the only thing that’ll be happening later.”  He’d reminded her with a dirty grin and headed out the door after Archie and Chop. 

Finding a walk-in clinic in London had been harder than expected, but they had prevailed, and were sitting in the waiting room.  Izzy’s gums had stopped bleeding, but her mouth felt sore and swollen.  Rae looked over at her worried face and took her hand, giving her a reassuring smile. 

 

 

He peered into her mouth.

“You probably need to see a dentist.”  He mused, shining the light at all parts of her mouth.  He took her temperature.  “Slightly elevated.”  He muttered.  “It’s probably gingivitis.”  He sat down and folded his hands in front of him on his desk.

“Any other symptoms.”

“I been having an ear infection on and off for the past month.”  She answered.  Rae watched the doctor’s brow crease and he grabbed his auriscope and had a look in her ears. 

“Hmm.”  He wrote a few notes in the file the clinic had just made for Izzy. 

“Any other symptoms Isabella?”  She shook her head.

“She been real tired.”  Rae suddenly said and the doctor turned his eyes to her.

“Are you two… together?”  He asked.

“No.”  Rae laughed it off.

“There’s no shame in it.”

“We’re just mates.”  Rae responded and the doctor nodded.

“Is there any chance of a sexually transmitted disease?”

“No.”  Izzy replied defensively.

“Then it’s probably Anaemia.  A lot of young women have anaemia.”  He wrote something on a piece of paper for her, “Most women don’t think it’s serious, but it is.  Makes you more susceptible to infections, makes you tired.  Get some iron tablets from a chemist, they’re over the counter.”  He handed her the piece of paper with that advice written on it then his eyes fell to a bruise on her arm, he held her arm and ran his thumbs across the bruise.

“How long have you had this?”

“I didn’t even know I had it.”  Izzy looked at the bruise with surprise.  The doctor shrugged and smiled winningly.

“We’ll run some blood tests, confirm the anaemia.  Can I send the results to your regular doctor?”

“Yeah.”  Izzy replied, clearly relieved.  

“How’s your stomach been?”

“Fine.”  Izzy replied.  “Although I haven’t been as hungry lately.”  She thought for a moment, “but otherwise fine.”

“No pain or anything anywhere?”

“Nope.”

“Probably anaemia.”  He nodded, assured, “take the iron pills!”

“I will!”  Izzy smiled

 

 

“Thanks Rae.”  Izzy said happily as they headed to the chemist.

“No problem Izzy.  I’m just glad it’s nothing serious.”

“No but the doctor said it is!”

“Yeah but, it’s just iron pills and it’s fixed, I mean.”  Izzy nodded in agreement.

“I’m glad too!”  Izzy ran her tongue gingerly over her sore gums.

“You should see a dentist too.”  Rae reminded her. 

“When we get home I will.” 

“I’m worried about Chloe.”  Rae suddenly said.

“Me too.”

“I hope she’s at the apartment when we get back.”

But she wasn’t. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Rid Of Me’ by PJ Harvey _

 

“Please don’t be mad at me Rae.”  Chloe pleaded miserably. 

“I’m not mad, I were just worried.”  Rae answered, “Where were you last night?”  Chloe looked away, crossing her arms over her bruised breasts painfully.

“Nowhere.”

“With that guy?” 

Chloe’s eyes glazed over as she tried to remember what had happened over the past 2 days.  All of the images were blurry. 

“It’s like I’m watching a movie Rae.”

“What do you mean?”

“A movie that’s outta focus, and I can’t quite see… anything…”  She looked at her hands.  Rae watched her face as she struggled to remember what had happened.  “I didn’t realise so much time had passed.  I’m sorry!”

“It’s ok Chlo.  It’s fine.”  Rae took her hands and Chloe looked down at the floor. 

“I don’t even know their names.”  She said softly. 

“Whose names?”

“All the guys.”  She said softly.  Her eyes misting over.

“Chloe?”

“It’s like I wasn’t even there.  It weren’t my body, you know?”  She spoke as if she were far away.  Rae felt her stomach churn with fear. 

Chloe tried to see what had happened to her.  She could feel it written across her whole battered body and deep within her core.  But she couldn’t remember much. 

“Chloe, how’d you get that bruise on your face?”  Rae asked, her guilt over letting Chloe go with that guy rising.

“I don’t remember.”  She said as she raised her hand to her face.  “I don’t remember any of it Rae.”  Rae watched as tears started to fall down Chloe’s face. 

“That’s ok.  Do you remember going out?”  Chloe nodded, “and the crowds?”  Another nod, “d’you remember Archie kissing that bloke?  And the countdown?”  Chloe nodded, but less sure.  “It’s alright, it’s all pretty blurry to me too.”  Rae tried to reassure her, “then there was that guy.  He were kinda rough with you?”  Chloe shook her head.

“I remember you telling him to fuck off though.  Thanks for trying to… I’m sorry I went with him.  I’m sorry I brushed you off.”

“Don’t be sorry Chlo!”  Rae shook her head.  “But why did you go with him?”

“I dunno.  It’s like… it’s like I was watching myself make the decision.  It weren’t me.”

“But it was you.”  Rae said worried.

“It’s like there’s two me’s inside of me Rae.”  Chloe squeezed her hands together painfully.  “There’s this smart me.  Who like, knows that I shouldn’t do stuff, and tries to look out for me.  And there’s this… little girl… who’s hurt and broken… and she… does stuff… to make it hurt more.  But that ends up making it all numb.”  Chloe’s eyes brimmed over with tears, her body shaking and she started to rock herself back and forth.  “She whispers to me Rae.  Tells me to do things… and then… things happen to her.  She’s not me… she’s… someone else.  It’s someone else’s body those guys used.”  She finished tears snaking down her face. 

“Chloe, did that guy… did he…?”

“I want her dead Rae.”  Chloe suddenly said.  “I want her dead.  I want her gone.”

“Who?”

“The broken little girl.”  Chloe’s eyes seemed to be seeing things that weren’t there.  Images from her memories.

“The girl inside of you?”

“The things she lets men do to her…”  Chloe said in disgusted misery.

“To you Chloe, it’s happening to you.”

“She’s not me.”  Chloe shook her head vehemently.  “I wouldn’t do that stuff.”

“Chloe, I think you’re dealing with a lot of…”  Rae searched for the right word.  “Trauma.”

“I’m fine Rae.”  Her eyes cleared, “just had a little too much fun.”  She held her shirt high up on her neck, her body closed off, her eyes hard. 

“Well maybe we should both be having a little less fun?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Maybe… We should swear off alcohol for like – a week?”

“I was thinking that I should maybe stay away from boys for a little bit.”  Chloe suddenly said, “But I can’t make you do that with me.”  She said with a sweet smile. 

“If you need me to, I will.” Rae said, swallowing hard, hoping Chloe would have mercy.

“No.  It’s fine.  But I think… I think you’re right Rae.  I do need to have a little less fun… I need to stay away from boys for a bit.”

“Maybe you could talk to my therapist as well?”  Rae added hopefully.

“What about?”  Chloe answered with feigned indifference.

“Chlo.  You’re me best mate.  I love you, you know?”  Rae said as she pulled Chloe into a hug, “You need to talk about what happened in Ian’s house.”  She said softly as she held Chloe.  Chloe went stiff but stayed in Rae’s arms.

“Nothing happened Rae.”

“Ok.”  Rae said softly.  As she let Chloe go.  “Nothing happened.  But it still upset you.  So… talking might help.”  Rae grabbed a pen and scrawled Kester’s number on one of the paper napkins Chop had provided with their lunch.  Chloe looked at the number and then back at Rae.

“How did you know?”  Her voice cracked.

“You’re me best mate.  Plus… screaming at a guy in a pub not to touch you… you know.”  Rae said with a grim smile.  Chloe took the number from Rae.

“I’m sorry.”  She said softly.

“You have nothing to be sorry about.”  Rae answered meaningfully.

“I’m sorry I let this happen to myself.”  Her face screwed up with grief. 

“This was not your fault.”  Rae said firmly.  Chloe felt a deep well of pain inside of her bubbling over, fresh tears started to stream down her face.  “It wasn’t your fault.”  Rae took the weeping Chloe into her arms again, “it wasn’t your fault Chloe.  None of it is.  It’s all him.   It’s all on him.” 

The boys waited in the lounge room Izzy standing at the door waiting to see if she was needed.  This had been planned by her and Rae in advance.  They heard Chloe’s sobbing.  And shared worried glances. 

“She were raped weren’t she?”  Archie asked faintly.  Three sets of male eyes turned up to Izzy.

“It’s not for me to say.”  She answered softly. 

“She told that guy not to touch her.”  Archie persisted.

“It’s not for me to say Arch.”  Izzy answered firmly. 

“You know that thing that happened at our pub?”  Chop asked, “You know the one where that guy grabbed Rae… I been thinking about that…”  Chop furrowed his eyebrows, “Rae’s not that kinda girl.”  He struggled with words.  He scratched his face roughly and looked at Finn, “you know?  But that guy… he needed belting… cos…”  He looked down, “cos we know what he would’a done if our lad Finn weren’t there.”  He shook his head, “does this stuff just… happen to girls?”  He looked up at Izzy.

“Yeah.”  She said softly. 

“To you?”  He asked urgently.

“Well, I haven’t had it that bad… but guys grab me sometimes, and yell stuff at me sometimes.”  She shrugged.  Finn kept his eyes on the door, thinking about what Rae had said about Saul.  Chop jumped up off the lounge and put his arms around Izzy.

“I’ll fucking kill anyone that touches you.  You know that right?” 

“It’s too late if the damage is already done.”  Archie said numbly. 

They sat in silence, listening to Chloe’s sobs filtering through the closed door. 

“What can we do, Iz?”  Finn asked, his eyes downcast.

“That’s not for me to say either.  Just have to wait for Chlo to tell us what to do.”

“I’m with Finn.”  Archie got up and started to pace, “I hate doing nothing.”

“It’s not about how you want though is it?”  Izzy countered gently. 

 

 

 

 

_‘Stinkfist’ by Tool_

 

Finn paced his room.  Rae was locked into family commitments tonight; her mother had insisted since she had spent so much of these holidays away from home.  He was seeing her tomorrow; they had therapy with Kester and the house to themselves that night.  And he knew they’d catch up on Sunday too, but he missed her now. 

And then it was back to college on Monday, and that would slow them down a little.  Plus he was anxious about going back. 

It was midnight.  He was sure that Rae’s house would be tightly tucked up in bed.  He grabbed his jacket and went downstairs.

“Heading out?”  His father said as he went past him, reading in the lounge room.

“Missing Rae.” 

His father closed his book, a finger keeping the page, and looked astutely at him. 

“Are you in love with her?”

“C’mon da!”  Finn protested, embarrassed. 

“I noticed you gave her my mother’s necklace.”  Finn bit the inside of his mouth and looked away.  “When your grandmother gave that to you Finn, she intended for you to give it to your wife.”  Finn pocketed his hands and shrugged, keeping his eyes on the wall.  His father took a sip of his tea. “That necklace belongs in our family.”

“I know.”  Finn answered softly. 

“So you think you love her?”

“Dad, I’m not talking to you about this, ok?”

“How long have you been with Rae?”  Finn groaned, frustrated.  “I’m just wondering how long it took you to decide to give away that necklace.”

“Long enough ok?”  Finn snapped, “I been with her long enough to know.”  Gary nodded, satisfied. 

“And does she feel the same?”  Finn looked at the ceiling, exasperated.

“I dunno.  I hope so.  I think so.”  He said defensively. 

“And you’re sure of this?”  Gary saw Finn open his mouth to speak, “don’t just answer – think about it.”

“I been thinking about this for too long already – I know.  Alright?”  Finn retorted.

“You’re 17 Finn.”

“And you were 16 when you knocked up mum!”  He answered angrily. 

“And I don’t want to see you make the same mistake!”

“Thanks dad.”  Finn answered painfully. 

“I don’t mean it like that Finn, you know that!”  He said firmly, “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.  I just mean that I want you to go to university, have a career!”

“And you think Rae will stop me doing those things?”  Finn asked heatedly, “Cos if you do, you’re wrong.  She makes me want to do ‘em.”

“I found the pregnancy test.”  Gary said suddenly, “so it looks to me like that’s not true.”

“Oh shit.”  Finn sat down, knowing he wasn’t going anywhere soon. 

“Is she pregnant?”

“No.”  Finn answered defiantly.

“What would you have done if she was?”

“Whatever she said.”  Finn shrugged.

“What if she wanted to keep it?”

“Then that’s what would have happened.”

“Would you have married her?”

“Aye, if she’d have me.”

“I like Rae, Finn.  I like her a lot.  And I like that she makes you happy.  But this has made me worried.”

“You were happy with mum weren’t you?  Till she left?  You loved her?”

“I still do love your mother.”

“Right.  So you can love someone at the age of 16 and that love can last just fine.  So what are you worried about?”

“That you’ll end up like me.”  Gary dog-eared the page and put the book down.  “It’s been 7 years since… she went… And I haven’t had another relationship in all that time.  It’s lonely.”

“So find someone else.”

“I can’t, I’ve got you to look after.”

“Dad I’m fine.  I’ve got Rae.”

“And when she leaves?”

“You mean like ma?”

“No.”  Gary shook his head, “no I don’t think she’ll leave like your mum did.”  His lips were drawn in a tight white line.  He looked like he wanted to say something, but struggled with the words.  Finn saw so much of himself in his father at that moment. 

“What happened with mum?”  He tried to help.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well you made me talk about Rae.  You sit here and you tell me that she’ll leave me…?  Why would you say that?”

“I dunno.  Us Nelson men can be grumpy; hard to live with.  We’re shit with our emotions.”  He sighed, “sometimes we don’t see what’s happening to the people around us.”  He looked downcast, “just look after her, and look after yourself.  You’re important to me.  And I don’t like what happens to you when there’s trouble between you two.”

“Dad, there’s always gonna be trouble between me and Rae, I’ve come to understand that.”

“Why?”

“Cos it’s like fire and… and frost… and everything is extreme, nothing is small… and we’re both too stubborn.  And she makes me crazy.  In every way imaginable.  And I make her nuts.  We’re just… passionate.”  He shrugged.  “And that’s ok.”  He finished simply.  Gary watched the way his son’s face light up as he spoke and knew that Rae was the one for him. 

“Alright.”  He thought for a moment, “now we need to talk contraception.”

“No we don’t.”

“There was a pregnancy test in the rubbish Finn.  We need to talk contraception.”

“It’s fine, we sorted it out.”

“I can increase your allowance so you can afford condoms if you need.”

“Ok.  Fine.”  Finn said embarrassed.

“You should have just asked in the first place.”  He muttered. 

“Sorry.  Can I go?”

“Yeah, sod off then.  Don’t get caught!”  Gary called after him, “I don’t need another phone call from Linda.”

“What?”

“Your week in Leeds was not fun for me in more than one way.”  Gary intimated.  “Linda is not happy with you.  So don’t get caught sneaking into her daughter’s room.”

“Got it.” 

Finn decided to walk to Rae’s; less chance of being heard.  He lit a cigarette and hurried a long in the cold January night. 

When he finally got there he had managed to put the talk with his father out of his mind.  He looked up at the garage roof, ready to scale it yet again.  He checked the front door, making sure the lights were out and saw a white envelope on the front stoop. 

He walked up to it, curious. 

A creamy white envelope, with a hand drawn heart, and a single word on it.  His brows furrowed and he picked it up, shoved it in his pocket and started the slightly dangerous ascent to Rae’s room. 

As he got to the window, he saw her, in singlet and underwear, writing in her diary, the curtains still open, the window resolutely locked against the cold.  All he had to do was tap and the smile would break out on her face and she’d jump off the bed and let him in.

But he watched her a moment longer, the look in her eyes as she wrote told him that she was either writing about him, or something else that made her pretty horny.  She put the diary aside and reached her hand into her pants and Finn’s jaw dropped, in equal parts shock and delight. 

Part of him wanted to watch her masturbate, but he knew that was pretty creepy so he tapped the window, his cock already starting to throb in his pants. 

She looked up, scared and then mortified.  She shook her head, embarrassed, slowly got off the bed and opened the window.

“What did you see?”  She hissed at him as he clambered in as silently as he could. 

“Something I’d like to see more of.”  He bit his bottom lip and raised his eyebrows cheekily.

“Oh my god.”  She turned red and his grin grew wider.

“No!  It’s sexy.”  He said salaciously.  She shook her head and went back to her bed, Finn following her, undressing her the whole way.  “What’s say I watch you masturbate until you cum, and then we take care of me?”

“What’s say we don’t?”  Rae blushed. 

“What was you thinking about?”  She rolled her eyes at his question.

“It’s obvious innit?”  She answered testily.

“Oh but tell me anyway.”

“Archie and Chop, in a gay tryst.  And I walk in on them… and they both do me.”  Finn narrowed his eyes at her.

“That’s not funny.”  He answered only half serious.

“It’s fucking hilarious.”  Rae said starting to laugh at his sour expression. 

“What was you really thinking about?”

“You.”  She gave in.

“Oh, what was I doing?”

“Me.”  He leaned over and kissed her.  Feeling something digging into his thigh, he remembered the envelope.

“Oh hey.”  He pulled it out and handed it to her, “found this on your front doorstep.

“Found it on the front doorstep.”  She said laughing, “You’ll have to lie better than that Finnley.”  She said as she looked at the envelope, her name inside of the love heart. 

“What d’you mean?”  He asked as he watched her opened it and pull out a beautiful gold bracelet.  She smiled at him.

“I thought you had no money now that you’re not working.”  She smiled, “It’s beautiful Finn, thank you.”  She said as she put it on.  Finn felt a slow panic raising in his stomach.  He looked over at the open window, the curtains revealing her room to the road outside.  He got up and closed them, making sure the window was locked.

“What’s wrong?”  She asked.

“Rae, that bracelet’s not from me?”

“But it’s the same love heart…?”  She looked at his face, “You didn’t send the roses or the chocolates either?”  She suddenly realised.

“No.” 

“Huh.”  She didn’t know how she felt.  “So I have a secret admirer?”  She said to herself.  “What?”  She was confused.  Who would secretly admire her?

“Or a stalker.”  Finn’s mind went to Liam.  He looked back at the window to make sure it was properly closed.

“It’s probably a mistake.”  She shrugged.

“A mistake, with your name on it, three times?”  Rae saw how worried he was.

“Don’t worry about it Finn, it’s nothing!”

“What if it’s not Rae?”  Finn asked insistently.  Rae had no answer and just shrugged. 

“It’ll be fine.”  She said after a while.  And invited him to come and lie down with her. 

He took her protectively into his arms and stroked her hair, as much to sooth himself as her. 

She fell asleep long before he did. 

His mind kept churning. 

Roses. 

Chocolates. 

Gold bracelet. 

Liam. 

That guy was dangerous. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Into Dust’ by Mazzy Star _

 

 _Your skin is so soft._   They were lying, legs entangled, tongues entwined, hands freely exploring.  Finn traced small love letters on her back and she would sigh gently to let him know that she’d ‘read’ them. 

 _You are my world._ This phrase had become Finn’s way of saying ‘I love you’ and he used it often. 

This morning he had leapt out of Rae’s window before Linda had woken, but within an hour, she was at his place, and they were in bed together again.  They were planning on walking to the hospital together, but about 20 minutes ago, a nurse from the hospital had rung to re-arrange their appointment, some sort of emergency had Kester’s attention.  So they had stayed in Finn’s room, they had all of Saturday free, and they intended to spend the entire day in bed.  In fact, they’d probably spend the rest of the weekend in bed because, both Gary and Janice were heading into work today, and then Janice was heading back to Leeds for the rest of the weekend, and Gary was off to London.  So they also had the place to themselves.  Finn’s dad always went to London at this time of the year.  Finn knew it wasn’t work related but had no definitive answer as to what it was about.  Sometimes around this time of year he’d see his dad reading a tatty old piece of paper and looking pretty morose.  Finn had guessed that it was about his mother, but he didn’t know for sure. 

But it was his dad’s business.  Not his. 

Even so, Finn knew it was a difficult time for his dad, so he always made an effort to give him a hug. 

“Want a drink girl?”  He sat up, regretfully extricating himself from her embrace.  She sighed and nodded.  “I’ll be back.”  He imitated Arnie, eliciting a smile from Rae and headed for downstairs quietly, not wanting to wake Janice if she was still asleep.  He stopped near the bottom of the stairs to take a breath and put his supportive face on for his dad.  He heard the kettle go off in the kitchen, heard Janice’s voice.

“I’ll get it.” 

“Thanks.”

Finn heard Rae put on Babylon Zoo upstairs and had to stifle a laugh.  He wanted to run back up the stairs and kiss her.  Now he had to wipe the stupid grin off his face again.  He took a deep breath and tried to look serious.

“I’m sorry.”  His father said sadly.  “It’s a bit embarrassing really.” 

“No Gary it’s fine.”  Finn’s ear pricked up and he took a few more steps down the stairs to hear better.

“I’m used to having the place to myself on a Saturday morning.”  Gary sighed.  “Finn usually sleeps late or is off at football practice.”  Finn heard his dad sniff and felt a pang of guilt in his stomach.  How often did his sit at the table alone, near tears, it sounded. 

“It’s ok.”  He heard Janice sooth his father.  “I don’t mind.  And you have nothing to be embarrassed about.” 

Finn heard his father sniff again, heard the scrape of a seat on the floor. 

“It’s just a very emotional anniversary for me today.”  His voice wavered and Finn’s eyebrows creased in concern and curiosity.  He’d never heard his father talk about this.  He silently crept closer to the door, wanting to hear.  He could see his dad, Janice’s hand on his hand.  But he couldn’t see Janice.  He saw that his dad had the piece of paper.

“Is this when your wife left?”  She asked cautiously. 

“Yeah.”  Gary said and took a sip of his tea. 

“I can’t imagine how hard it’s been for you and Finn.  I’m really sorry.”  Finn watched her hand go up to his father’s face, it looked like she was wiping away a tear. 

“Harder on her I think.”  He mumbled.  Finn knew he shouldn’t be listening in, but he felt himself creeping closer still; he didn’t want to miss a word. 

“Can I asked what happened?”  Her voice was low and delicate, but Gary’s gruff, cynical laugh cut through the calm. 

“What happened?”  His voice was filled with regret and self-loathing.  “I let her down.  She had so much pain and…”  Gary shook his head sadly, “She suffered every day.  And I couldn’t help her.  I tried.  I thought sometimes that I was getting somewhere.  But in the end, I wasn’t enough for her.”  Finn felt a stabbing pain in his chest. 

_But in the end, I wasn’t enough for her…_

The crinkling of paper told Finn that his dad was looking at that weathered piece of paper again.

“Is that…?”

“Her goodbye note.”  Gary answered the question before it was asked.  “Been holding on to this for 7 years.  It was the last thing she ever gave me.”

“You still love her?”  Janice’s voice was filled with raw emotion and admiration.

“Aye.”  His father said, uncharacteristically using the Scottish positive.  Finn watched his father wipe his eyes, repress his emotion and once again saw himself in those actions.  “Us Nelson men don’t stop loving once we start.  I’m noticing that with Finn more and more.”  It was strange hearing his father notice the similarities between them. 

“Well I think it’s very noble and very romantic.”  Janice said kindly.  “But don’t you get lonely?”

“Yeah.  I do.”  He said sadly, and then with an amused tone, “You know Finn told me to start dating again!”

“I think he’s right.”  Janice said, “7 years is a long time to be alone.  And I firmly believe that we humans are more than capable of loving more than one person.”  She squeezed his hands, “plus, the female population is missing out Gary.”  She said cheekily and Gary laughed softly. 

“You’re a liar Miss Harcourt!”  He joked.

“No, I never lie.”  Her tone was light, but Finn heard the gravitas hidden beneath the carefree delivery of her words. 

“You know I haven’t thanked you for bringing Finn back.”

“I didn’t bring Finn back.  Finn brought himself back.”

“Nonetheless, I know you had a lot to do with it.  I think that the Nelson men have been very lucky to have you around Janice.”

“I feel pretty lucky to have met you two as well.”  She picked up her tea cup, and Finn, unable to see, could only assume she took a drink.  “So what are we going to do to get Gary Nelson on the dating scene?” 

“Leave off!”  He sounded oddly pleased and Finn felt himself smile for his father. 

“Do you know Gary, this might be overstepping my mark, but I think you should throw that letter out.”  Janice said suddenly. 

Finn was afraid to breathe the silence was so complete. 

“I don’t know if I can.”  Gary responded, barely audible. 

“Ok, well let’s just try putting it on the table then.” 

“I’m not that bad!”  He groaned and Finn saw his dad put the letter on the table, “I can put it down.”

“Ok.”  The scrape of the chair on the floor as she moved closer again, now Finn could see her face as she leaned closer, “Can I read it?”  She asked softly.

“I don’t know…”

“Ok.”

“It’s just… I haven’t let anyone read it.”

“So you’ve borne the contents of this letter alone, for 7 years?”  Her hands went back to his, her face was desperately compassionate. 

“Well… it’s just that.  Most of our family’s in Australia, and some in Scotland, you know.  And Finn… well Finn doesn’t need to know all of this.”

“Maybe he does, Gary.  He’s a young man now.  And it might do you good to let this go.” 

There was a silence.  And slowly one of Gary’s hand left Janice’s and picked up the letter.  He handed it to her.

“You read that, and tell me if I should let my son read it.”  He said softly, knowingly.  Janice took the letter with one hand, the other still holding Gary’s, and Finn watched her face as closely as he could. 

Her first expression was a gentle smile, followed by a slowly growing look of concern and then shock.  Her eyes looked up from the letter to Gary’s face who was smiling grimly.

“I don’t think Finn should read this.”  She conceded in a devastated whisper. 

“No.”  Gary agreed, his smile turned bitter, “This is for me to carry alone.” 

“Not alone.”  Janice said softly, “I’ve read it now.”  She looked at his face and smiled.

“Well that just means you understand how completely I failed her.”

“I remember Finn telling me how much he had failed Rae.”  Janice looked down at their fingers, entwined, “He sat in my brother’s pub and hated himself for letting her down.  And I am going to tell you what I told him.”  She looked back up at his face, “I don’t think you could have helped her.”  Finn watched his father’s face collapse in grief.  Janice wrapped her arms around him, “You couldn’t have helped her.”  Gary sobbed and Janice held him, whispering,

“You did everything you could.”

Finn knew he had trespassed long enough and turned silently, travelling back up the stairs with a sense of dread in his stomach. 

He opened the door to his room, to see Rae sitting on his bed looking through some of his CDs.

“Oi, where’s me drink?”  Rae joked and then saw his face, “what’s wrong?”  Finn sat down next to her and she laced her arms around him, he found her touch so comforting and leaned into her gently. 

“I just heard me dad and Janice talking.”  He said quietly.  “Dad’s got a letter from me mum that he don’t want me to see.”

Rae took a deep breath.  She didn’t know what to say, so she waited for him to speak.  She had learned it was often better to give him time to think anyway.

“It’s the anniversary of her leaving.”  Finn said numbly, “and he’s telling Janice things that he’s never told me.”  Rae bit her tongue, didn’t point out that Janice seemed to bring that out in people; himself included.  They sat in silence for a while, Rae’s arms around Finn as his mind worked through all his feelings.

“It’s his business innit?”  He asked her cautiously.

“Well yeah… but she’s your mum.  I wanted to know why me dad left.”

“Why did he leave?”

“Dunno.  I think it were probably cos he weren’t a nice person.  But I dunno for sure.”

“Do you think about it?”

“Yeah.  A fair bit.”

“And if you could find out.  Would you?”

“Yes.”

Finn stood up and paced the room, clearly in conflict.  Rae watched him, not sure what to say.

“If I read that letter Rae.  I’ll know.”  He said after a while.

“But your dad don’t want you to read it.”

“No.”  He agreed.  “No he doesn’t.”  He started to pace again, “and Janice thought that I shouldn’t read it either.”

“Well… what do you think?”  Rae didn’t know what was best.

“I dunno.”  He sat down on the bed next to her.  “If it were you, what would you do?”

“I’d read it.”  She answered truthfully.  Finn looked down at his fingers and bit the inside of his mouth.

“Ok.”  He said softly, “alright.  I think I want’a read it.” 

“Don’t do it just cos I would.”

“I want’a know why me mum left me behind Rae.”  His voice was heartbreaking.  “You know, when I were 10, me dad just said, ‘your mum left Finn.’  That were it.  No explanation, no discussion, just, be brave Finny boy, this is the new fact of our lives.”  He looked at the wall, and Rae could see the great weight that had been put on him from so young, bearing down on him. 

“Ok.  You have to know.  I understand.”  She took his hand, “I’ll read it with you.”  She said supportively.  She felt some of the tension leave his body.

“Thanks.”  He breathed anxiously.

“I think you need some tea.  Tea fixes everything.”  She reminded him and he smiled wanly.  “I’ll go get some, then we’ll wait for your dad and Janice to leave, and we’ll try and find it.”  Finn nodded his agreement with the plan. 

Rae left him, sitting on his bed, biting the cuticles around his nails brutally and went down to the kitchen with a sense of foreboding.  She couldn’t help but feel that this was a bad idea.  She started to hope that Gary would take the letter with him when he went to London. 

She wondered what kind of thing Gary would keep from Finn.  Private things between a man and a woman.  She started to feel guilty about this plan.  And this feeling was not alleviated by Gary waking into the kitchen looking exhausted, a battered piece of paper in his hands. 

“Rae?”  He said with a genuine smile through his exhaustion, “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“ ‘Morning Gary.”  Rae attempted to smile as her eyes fell to the letter.  “Want a brew?”

“No that’s fine.”  He said as he went to his work desk and opened the third drawer.  She watched as he put the letter under all the other papers in there. 

“Oh fuck.”  She muttered imperceptibly to herself.  Now she knew where it was there was no excuse not to find it.  She wouldn’t lie to Finn, not about anything.  Especially not something as important as this.

“Got to get a move on for work!”  He continued as he bustled around the kitchen.  And then he stopped and turned to her.  “You know you don’t have to sneak in Rae.  You are very welcome here.”  He said as if this was of great importance.  He touched her shoulder, “my son cares a great deal about you.”  His eyes dropped to the necklace she wore, “so you’re family now.  Understood?”  He drew her into a hug.  She hugged him back, feeling an odd mixture of warmth, support and awkwardness. 

“Alright Gary.”  Rae answered happily.  When he pulled back from the hug she saw that his eyes were red. 

“Ok.”  He nodded and looked at her for a moment longer before hurrying off to the lounge room.  Rae watched him leave the house a moment later, calling out his goodbyes to Finn, Janice and herself. 

“Oh fuck.”  She sighed.  The third drawer in the desk seamed to burn her retinas as she stared at it.

Finn came in, not able to wait alone in his room.  They sat down at the table, calmly, quietly, knowing what they would do once Janice left. 

“I know where it is.”  Rae told him.  Choosing to support his decision above her own misgivings.  He nodded and followed her gaze to his father’s work desk. 

They drank their tea, staring at the desk, making small talk with Janice as she ate breakfast, waiting for the sound of her car to fade. 

“Alright.”  Rae knew there was no point in delaying the inevitable.  Finn watched her get up and go over to the desk.  She sat down in Gary’s chair and slowly slid open the third drawer. 

There were a whole lot of tax forms and receipts and Rae carefully lifted them up to find the letter underneath. 

She took the letter and turned to Finn, seeing him picking at his cuticles, even though one was now bleeding. 

“Don’t do that.”  She said gently. 

“Sorry.”  He said shakily, “Nervous.”  He explained. 

“Let’s open this in your room?”  Rae asked as she held out her hand.

Finn nodded and went to her. 

 

 

 

 

_‘You and I’ – Jeff Buckley_

 

Finn wiped his hands on his boxers and looked up at Rae as she sat down beside him, holding the folded piece of paper. 

She started to unfold it and Finn put his hand over hers.

“I don’t know if I can do it.”  He whispered, terrified, thinking of Janice’s response to its contents. 

“Alright.”  Rae closed it.  “Shall I put it back?”

“No.”  Finn looked at the letter.  They’d come this far.  “Can you read it first?”  He asked vulnerably. 

“Of course.”  She kissed his lips tenderly and turned back to the letter. 

Finn watched her open the letter, kept his eyes on her face as the same look of concern and shock that Janice had had, crept over her face.  And then her eyes darted up to him, sympathy, compassion, fear and pain in her eyes.  Finn dropped his eyes to the letter when she did.  He watched her reading it again.

“What is it Rae?”  She looked up at his worried face. 

“I don’t think you should read it.”  She answered softly as she looked back down at the letter, her eyes picking out the most terrible parts. 

“Why?”  His face was confused, frustrated. 

“Um… your mother was unwell.”  Rae said after a long moment.  She watched Finn’s eyes drop to the letter so she closed it protectively.

“Unwell?”

“Like me Finn.”  She tried to make him understand.  Finn’s face screwed up in thought and memory.  “Your mum was ill.  She were like me.  And she left because of that.”  Rae explained.

“What does the letter say?”  Finn asked numbly.

“That’s what it says.”  Rae answered firmly.  Finn felt himself standing up.

“Rae, give me the letter.”

“Please don’t make me give it to you Finn.”  She pleaded.  He paused for a moment, her plea making him waver.

“Pease let me see it.”  He knew he had to read it now. 

Rae lowered her eyes and nodded her head as he sat back on the bed, making no attempt to take the letter from her.

“Finn.”  She swallowed hard, “your mum… she…” and then another thought came to her.  “Gracie?”  She said softly.  A confused look came over Finn’s face.

“Gracie?”  He repeated.  His eyes blank, he showed no recognition.  Rae looked back at the closed letter.  He was going to read it.  She couldn’t stop him. 

“You had a sister, Finn.”  Rae said softly.  Finn blinked a few times, his face a mask of disbelief. 

“Grace.”  He understood.  Rae nodded.  “I think, I remember…” a crying child?  “No, I can’t remember her.”  Finn finally said.  He shook his head frustrated.

“That’s alright Finn.”  Rae soothed.

“Did my mum take her and not me?”  He whispered emotionally. 

_Lie to him._

_This is kinder than the truth.  ‘_

“Rae?”  She put her arms around him, not knowing what to say.  He sunk into her arms slowly. 

“Why did you say I ‘had’ a sister?”  His voice was low, insistent.  His hand crept up to her hands slowly and gently took the letter from her.  She let it go.  She didn’t know what else to do.  Finn opened the letter, still in Rae’s arms and began to read, biting his bottom lip anxiously.  

_To my Dearest Gary_

_It seems so strange to be ending our mad love affair like this.  I always believed you that we’d grow old together.  I hope you know that I still love you, I always will.  And this has nothing to do with you.  You’ve done everything you could._

Finn looked up at Rae’s face as she held him, her eyes told him that the letter was going to be bad, but he still found the strength to look back down at the scrawling script so similar to his own. 

_It’s seems unfair to keep hurting you the way I do._

_It’s not going away Gary._

_It’s not leaving me._

_It’s growing._

_I keep seeing her lying in that cot dead.  My baby girl._

Finn felt a growing pain in his belly.

He heard a crying child. 

He could vaguely remember Grace.

“I think I were 4 when she died.”  He barely breathed. 

“Oh Finn.”  Rae held him tighter as she saw tears starting to form in his eyes. 

“Maybe 5.”  He recalled something sombre.  Images of a tiny coffin came to him. 

And then his mother.  Burning photographs.  Crying, screeching. 

“How did I forget?”  His body felt numb now, but his heart ached. 

“You were a child Finn.”  Rae answered, “I don’t remember when I were 5.”

He looked up to her for reassurance that he wasn’t some heartless monster, and saw her compassion. 

He looked back down at the letter.

_I keep hating myself that I were focussing so much on Finn that I didn’t notice she had died._

A shuddering intake of air from Finn.

Rae felt a tear creep down her cheek as she saw the agony on his face.

_But worse, I keep hating Finn for fussing so much that he needed so much of my attention._

A gentle sob.  Rae stroked his hair.

“It’s not your fault.”  She whispered to him.

_I hate those drugs the doctor gave me.  They make everything numb.  And grey.  And I can’t stand it._

_I can’t take them anymore._

_I know you said that you’d love me forever.  And I believe you.  But I’m scared._

_I keep thinking of hurting myself.  But that doesn’t scare me as much as the other thoughts._

_I’m afraid for Finn._

_Today he and Archie were running and screaming around the house._

_How can he laugh?  How can he play?_

_Doesn’t he realise that Gracie is cold in the ground?_

_And I had this image of me just shaking him, slamming him into the wall until he died._

Finn couldn’t read the letter, his vision was too blurred with tears.  Rae took his face between her hands and kissed his crying face.  Shuddering sobs left his mouth.  He handed it to her and she understood that he wanted her to read it to him.

_“I have to go._

_Please don’t think this is your fault._

_And don’t let Finn think it’s his fault.”_

She paused for emphasis, But Finn, his head on her shoulder was beyond hearing these words.  He cried inconsolably.  Almost silently, only the trembling intake of air could be heard, the shaking of his body felt. 

_“There’s something broken inside of me._

_I let our baby girl die, and it doesn’t matter what the doctors say Gary – I know it was my fault.”_

Rae stopped, letting the hand that held the letter drop to her lap, she didn’t want to read the next part, but Finn took her hand, and raised it again.  It was too late now.  It all had to come out. 

_“I know it was Finn’s fault!  If he’d just stopped running around for five minutes so I could get him dressed!  But he never did.  He never stopped.  And our little girl stopped breathing.  And I wasn’t there.”_

Finn buried his face in her neck and Rae tightened her arms around him as he sobbed, unrestrained, for the first time in his life. 

She was finding it hard to read the letter, her eyes filled with tears, her throat closing with grief.  But she held the letter up behind him as he clung to her, and read over his shoulder, knowing she had to finish it for him.

_“I thought that after a few years I’d get better.  I thought you could heal me.  I know you thought it too._

_But it’s not working and I can’t be what you want._

_Take care of Finn._

_Tell him I love him.”_

She paused, both to get her breath from crying, and to make sure that Finn heard that. 

_“Because I do.  That’s why I’m leaving._

_If I ever get better, I’ll come back._

_I love you Gary._

_Yours forever_

_Kenzie.”_

 

Finn’s breaths came in sharp, ragged heaves of his chest, Rae held on to him as tightly as she could as she felt the emotion sweeping through him.  He took the letter from her and crumbled it up and let it fall to the floor, his eyes never leaving it, his vision blurred by tears. 

Rae didn’t know what to say to him.

What do you say to something like that?

“Oh Finn.”  Rae tried to sooth his tears. 

But he said nothing.  He just clung to her, his face buried in her neck, his body shaking. 

“She were unwell.”  Rae wanted him to hear her.  “She loved you, that’s why she left.  She didn’t want to hurt you.”  Another ragged breath.  “It weren’t your fault what happened to your sister.  It weren’t your fault that your mum left.”  Another heaving sob of a breath.  She felt him crumble under the weight of his grief and let him fall further into her, laying down on the bed with him.  He balled his body up, burying his face into her neck even more, sobbing.  And she tried to envelope him, to protect him, tried to take all of it from him with soft words and gentle strokes. 

And he sobbed, pitifully. 

After a while she started to gently sing to him first one song, then another, and another; snippets of lyrics she could remember, the words barely leaving her mouth: 

“You and I, you and I, you and I,  
All for you.  
Where you think you'll fall,  
I adore you.  
Where you shut your soul,  
I will open for you.  
If we had only known, in a way  
We'd never reach this ground.  
I'll know, silver eyes.  
I can see us shine.  
I said, we will feel the weight  
Fall away from us in time  
Searching our past for a true  
You and I, you and I, you and I,  
All for you.”

“Can’t argue with Jeff Buckley.”  He said in a small, ragged voice when she’d stopped.  She held him tighter, relieved to hear his voice.

“No you can’t.”  A gasp of emotion left her and she kissed the top of his head and he reached his face up, his mouth seeking hers.  She kissed him with all the strength she had in her, wanting him to take her strength.  Wanting this pain to not be his.  She tenderly wiped the tears from his face as he lay there, numbness having crept over his insides, his eyes downcast, but at least the tears had slowed now.  She kissed his forehead again, allowing the silence to stay as long as he needed it. 

“Rae?”  He sounded broken, his voice cracked and scraped at his vocal chords.  She kissed his lips gently.

“What do you need?”  She asked softly.

“It’s just… well…”  He paused for a long time and she waited, “You don’t think that… you don’t think any less o’ me, do you?”  He sounded so small and afraid. 

“No Finn!”  Her voice was firm, honest and bewildered that he could ask such a thing.  “I could never think less of you.  Your mother was unwell.”  She said forcefully.  “Nod your head Finn!”  She ordered and he did.  “She didn’t mean it.  She were unwell.”

“My dad always said I were a difficult child.”  Finn’s tears started afresh.

“Your sister is not dead because of you.”  Rae understood what he meant and countered it resolutely.

“Then why did she die?”

_Oh but he sounds so lost._

“I don’t know Finn.”  Rae answered truthfully, “but you running around being a kid, did not make her stop breathing in her cot.  Alright?”  Finn’s eyes bore into her, pleading for it to be true.  “Nod your head Finn.”  He nodded again and then nestled his face back into her neck.

“If you really want’a know what happened, we’re gonna have to talk to your dad.”

“No.”  He said, his face still buried. 

“Alright.”  She acquiesced and kissed the top of his head again. 

“Do you still like me Rae?”  He asked urgently, his face buried so much that she barely heard him.

“Of course I do.”  She was bewildered by his emotions.  “Look at me Finn.”  He slowly withdrew his face from her neck and raised his eyes to hers, shame and guilt brimming over in them.  “I still like you, ok?  Why wouldn’t I?”

“The stuff me mum said…”

“Has nothing to do with who you are Finn.”  She shook her head at him.

“What?”  He asked self-consciously.

“I always think you’re a lot more confident than you actually are.”  He lowered his eyes.

“D’you hate that about me?”

“I don’t hate anything about you.  Quite the opposite actually.”  He raised his eyes to hers again. Looking for confirmation of what she’d said.  “I don’t think differently about you.  What happened with your mum and your sister.  None of it were your fault.  You were 5 Finn.  How could it be your fault?”  He nodded slowly, willing himself to believe her.  “Your mum were ill.  And she loved you ok?”  He sniffed and nodded again.  Tears started to form behind his eyes and he did nothing to repress them.  He let them fall.  And she gently wiped them from his swollen cheeks. 

“I don’t wanna be like me dad Rae.”  He said desperately.  “I don’t wanna let you down.  I don’t wanna hold in what I’m feeling anymore.”

“Alright.”  She said encouragingly. 

“That won’t bother you?”

“Nope.”

“What if I cry too much?”

“I’ll probably still cry more.”

“What if I cry in front of people?”

“I’ll join in and they’ll think we’re both mad.”  And he laughed.  He couldn’t help it.  She was just so perfect.  He unfurled a little, rearranged himself so that he could hold her too, rather than be cradled by her.  He smiled, even though tears were still on both of their cheeks.

“You’re my world Rae.”

“And you’re mine.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 ______________

 

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” ~ Khalil Gibran

“And love doesn’t come when we want it to, but comes like an errant deer when it wants.” ~ Nizar Qabbani

 

Thank you to whatthefuckisthisfuckingfuckery.tumblr.com for the French translations of these Arabic phrases. 

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4 - The Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the fourth part of an 8 part season 3 fanfic.
> 
> If you can, read with the suggested music.
> 
> cheers m'dears

 

 

_ ‘Big Long Now’ by Nirvana _

Rae opened her eyes. 

He wasn’t asleep.

He wasn’t lying in the bed beside her.

He wasn’t watching her sleep.

He was standing.  Smoking.  Looking out the window. 

Still.

Perfectly still.  

Until he raised the cigarette to this mouth, sucked it heavily.  Then folded his arms over his chest again. 

She sat up in the bed.  Not attempting to hide that she was awake. 

The room was dark.  She looked over at the clock.  2 am. 

“Finn?’  Her voice was soft, low and it fell dead in the silent room.

He didn’t stir. 

“Finn?”  She said louder and she saw him blink, saw him swallow, saw him gather all the parts of himself, slowly and painfully; to be contained within his own skin again.  He turned his eyes to her slowly.

“Are you ok?”  She asked him, slightly scared.

“No.”  His voice was abrasive, painful to hear.  She reached out to touch him, but seeing him not reach out to her made her pause.  She dropped her hand and sat up more fully.

“What you doing?”  She wasn’t sure that she wanted to know. 

“Thinking.”  His voice was almost a hiss in the darkness.  The cigarette end lit up as he drew heavily on it again, holding the smoke in for a moment before letting it slowly escape from his mouth.  He turned his eyes back to the window. 

“Can you tell me what you’re thinking?”

The room was silent and then he snorted derisively. 

“Not sure you want’a hear it.”  His eyes slowly fell upon her face again.

“Maybe I don’t.”  Her voice was higher than usual, shaking slightly, “but I probably should hear it.”  She finished softly. 

“My father can’t keep his dick in his pants and gets stuck with me at 16.”  His voice was slow, unnaturally even, “He’s a fuck up, you know.  Can’t handle his emotions.  Can’t talk.”  He paused and slowly returned his eyes to the window.  “My sister dies.  My mother goes crazy while he sits there with his thumb up his arse.”  He lowered his head, “My mother leaves because she blames me and is thinking about killing me.  My father tells me nothing of this all my life.  Not a word.  Then at 17 I nearly knock up my ever so slightly crazy girlfriend.  I’m a fuck up, you know.  Just like him… I am making all the same mistakes he made.”  Rae felt a sting in her eyes, her heart starting to hammer.  “How much do you think I can fuck you up Rae?  As much as he fucked her up?”  He laughed cynically.  “Probably more.”  He sucked on the cigarette again, his eyes hollow with introspective pain.  “He was right, you’ll leave.  Why would you stay?” 

“You are not your father Finn.”  He turned his face to her.

“I’m angry Rae.”  His voice was still stilted, unnatural, but he sounded a little more like himself, and his calm face was cracking, his teeth grinding.  Rae steadied herself against the pain she felt.  She knew what she had to say, she knew she had to do what was best for him.

“You’re talking like you want to break up.  Like you need some time alone to sort through this.”  She said as calmly as she could.  “Is that what you are saying?”

“No.”  He said, softer.  He turned his whole body to her, “I don’t want to break up with you Rae.  But you should probably break up with me.”  He stubbed the cigarette out on the wall.  “I’m real angry.  And I don’t know what that’s gonna mean for us.”  Rae reached out for him, and this time his fingers twitched towards her, but he did not reach for her. 

“I’m not gonna leave you Finn.  I’ve already been through worse than your anger.” 

“Why would you want’a be with me now?”  Vulnerability crept into his voice.

“Why wouldn’t I?”  His hand slowly moved to hers and their fingers intertwined as she stood up, laced her other arm around his waist and pressed herself to him.  He aggressively wrapped his spare arm around her, holding her tightly to himself. 

“It’s not you Rae.”  He whispered to her urgently, “This rage, it’s not you.  So if I do anything… I’ll try not to… but if I do anything… bad.  Remember it’s not you.” 

“I know.”  She soothed.

“I’m scared of this… feeling.”  He finished after a moment’s thought. 

“I’m not.”  She reached up and stroked his face, “I could never be scared of any part of you Finn.”  She kissed his lips softly, and he returned the kiss, slightly stiffer than usual.  His eyes fell to the crumpled up letter on the floor and he instantly let go of Rae, almost pushing her aside, as if he had forgotten her.

He picked up the piece of paper and straightened it out.  He re-read.  His face completely blank, emotionless and utterly heartbreaking to Rae, who fought back her tears. 

Without any indication of what he was doing he reached into his pocket.  Rae kept her eyes on his, he looked at the letter.  He raised his lighter to the corner of the letter.

“If you do that Finn, your dad’ll know you read it.”

“I don’t give a fuck Rae.  He let me forget my sister.  He let my mum go mad.  I don‘t give a fuck about him.” 

“You don’t mean that.” 

Finn lit his lighter, the paper cracked as the corner slowly started to smoulder. 

“Fuck you.”  He whispered to the letter as flames started to devour it, speeding up towards his hand.

“Finn, drop it in your bin.”  Rae said as she emptied his metal bin and held it out to him.  He held the letter his eyes watching the flames.  She smelt burning hair and realised it was burning the hair on the back of his hand.

“Finn drop it!”  She commanded in a panicked tone, his eyes seem to come back to her from far away and he dropped the letter into the bin, finally seeming to feel the pain in his hand and arm. 

“Fuck.”  He murmured as he looked at this arm in the light of the fire in his bin.  He looked up at Rae, “I’m sorry.”  He said, and she saw some life in his eyes again. 

“Come on.”  She took his unburned hand and the bin and hurried him into the bathroom.  She turned the shower on cold and thrust the bin under it, extinguishing the fire, and then made Finn put his arm under it. 

“I’m sorry Rae.”  He said numbly. 

“It’s alright.”

“No it’s not.”  He kept his eyes on his burned arm, his voice gentle, vulnerable.  “I’m a mess at the minute.  It might be better for you if you were far away from me.  It might be best if we did take time apart.”

“No it wouldn’t.”  She answered firmly, “Let me have the chance to look after you for once.” 

“It’s my job to look after you.” He lamented.

“Well Finn.  I want our relationship to be equal.  You told Kester that you worried that you weren’t enough for me.  I worry that I’m not enough for you.  I worry that you think I’m too mental to look after you.” 

“I don’t want my stuff to make your stuff worse.”  He answered self-consciously.

“Finn.  You’re me man.  Your stuff is my stuff.”  He turned to her, his eyes filled with that unfathomable look of his.  And she focussed her eyes on his arm. 

“It’s not as bad as I worried.”  She said as she inspected the singed hairs, his eyes stayed on her, “Don’t look like it’s blistered.”  She thrust his hand back under the water.

“Rae.”  She looked up at him, “you are my everything.”  He said slowly.  “I’m nothing without you.”

“That’s not true Finn.  But maybe we both make each other better.”  He lifted both of his hands to her face.

“Keep your hand in the water!”  She tried to command, but his lips were on hers. 

“Make love to me?”  He asked vulnerably. 

“Always.”  She breathed, her hands finding the hem of his shirt, “But is that what you really need?”

“I need you.”  His mouth devoured hers and she felt his body start to shake.  She didn’t know if it was rage or grief, she just tried to match his aggressive kisses. 

When he gasped and stopped, she felt the tears on his face.  It was still grief.  It was still grief that owned most of her Finn. 

She led him back to his room and started to slowly take his clothes off. 

She slid his shirt off and kissed his chest.  She heard his voice hitch in his breath, grief, pleasure and desire mingling.  She ran her hands up his back and kissed his body with long, slow, wet kisses.  He groaned as if she were a masseuse, healing his aches and wounds.  She pushed him gently back onto the bed.  And turned the light on.  He laid, his hands behind his head and watched as she slowly took her clothes off for him.  She didn’t move sexually, just resolutely, and his eyes devoured her, but not in his usual lusty way.  His eyes were bruised, his desire mixed with his grief, his yearning for her as much about comfort as pleasure. 

She bent to the bed and kissed his feet gently, wanting to show love to every part of him.  She understood why he needed this, why he needed to feel loved.  She kissed her way up his body slowly.

When she got to his penis she kissed him gently, in the same way she’d been kissing all of his body, with love, not sex, before continuing on to his stomach, back to his chest, his neck and finally his mouth. 

She straddled him and gently guided his cock so that it glided smoothly into her.  She found his eyes, vulnerable, needing her.  She leaned down to him, her breast pressing into his chest.  He reached up and stroked her face, her hair, his eyes never leaving hers. 

She moved her hips rhythmically, her eyes locked on his, almost silent.  The look in his eyes as unfathomable as ever. 

“I need you.”  He whispered to her.

“I need you.”  She returned. 

She felt his hips starting to move beneath her slowly, matching her.  He lifted his chin and she knew he needed her mouth.  She kissed him, she tried so hard to put all her love into that kiss, so he could feel how safe he was with her.  She felt the tears on his cheeks and stopped to look at him.

“Please Rae, please don’t leave me.”  He begged. 

“I won’t.”

“Please don’t do it again.”

“Finn.”  Her voice was firm, “I won’t.”  She kissed him passionately, tasting his tears, his fear, his grief.  She felt his arms go around her, his fingers digging in to her in an effort to hold her closer.  Felt his hips starting to speed up a little. 

She felt the energy between them become charged, as if it might alight at any moment.  They both sped up, as if their minds were connected and knew what the other wanted without having to speak.  She felt the connection between them strengthen, putting down painful roots, but it was new growth nonetheless. 

“You won’t go?”  He started to smile; he looked relieved.

“I won’t go.”

“So this is forever?”  He was desperately vulnerable.  Rae’s mind had a moment to register what he was asking, what this meant, and she had no qualms in replying.

“Yes.  It is.” 

 

 

 

 

_‘Soul To Squeeze’ by Red Hot Chilli Peppers_

 

Rae had watched him sleep fitfully for a long time before she herself had slept.  And she’d cursed the sun streaming through the window waking her up in the morning. 

She saw his eyes open slowly, painfully.  His eyes focussed on her and a small sad smile touched his mouth.  She felt his hand in her hair.

“ ‘Morning Miss Earl.”  His voice was barely a whisper in the silent morning. 

“ ‘Morning Mr Nelson.”  She returned.  He kissed her gently and then slowly sat up, clearly still fragile and exhausted. 

“Rae?”  He asked gently, fear on his face.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for not leaving.”  She wrapped her arms around him, wondering what to say to make him feel better.

“It were a selfish choice.”  She replied playfully.

“Oh yeah?”  He raised his eyebrows sceptically, but the hint of a smile played with the corners of his mouth. 

“Can’t get enough of you.”  She said honestly, and was rewarded by a small smile and genuine gratitude in his eyes. 

_I should tell him I love him._

_But I don’t want him to think I’m only saying it to make him feel better._

_But he must know; I told him it were forever._

_If that don’t say I love you, nothing does._

“Let me cook you breakfast.”  She said getting off the bed.

“I’m not really hungry.”

“Good, cos I’m not much of chef.”  She smiled impishly and Finn felt himself having to smile in reply. 

He followed her downstairs, feeling as if his innards were empty and his skin swollen and bruised. 

He watched her looking through cupboards looking lost and muttering to herself, his eyes tired and sore.

He saw her cooking and staring, confused at his stovetop, his brain feeling as though it were wrapped in cotton wool.

He looked down at the plate of food she supplied; undercooked eggs, overcooked bacon and perfectly buttered toast with tomato sauce and orange juice and felt his heart swelling with love for her. 

“Sorry.”  She said as she watched him simply look at the plate.

“It’s perfect.”  He answered and looked up at her.  “What did I do to deserve you Rae?”  His heart ached with his love for her. 

“I dunno.  Be a dickhead?”  She joked and saw his eyes start to fill up with emotion again.  She touched his face, brushing away a tear, “be you.”  She said truthfully. 

“Did you mean it last night?”  His vulnerability made her terrified for him.  He was so lost. 

“I said a lot last night.”  She teased gently.

“You know which bit.” 

“This is forever Finn.”  She answered what he was too afraid to ask.  She held his gaze for a long while, seeing that look she didn’t understand fill his eyes.  He nodded thoughtfully and looked down at his plate.

“I’m starving.”  He said with a small smile.  Rae pulled a face at the food she’d cooked, but Finn just picked up his fork and ate it without another word. 

When he was finished he walked into the lounge room and took the photo albums of the shelf.  He sat on the floor and started to go through them, looking at all the pictures of his mother. 

Rae sat beside him silently, noticing how in the earlier photos she looked happy, but in the later ones, there was an unmistakable sorrow. 

“I wish we had Photos of Grace.”  His voice was piercingly sad, “I want’a remember her proper.”  Rae stroked his hair and tried to think of what to say as he flicked through the photos. 

Finn stopped on a photo of his mother hugging him tightly, her face set in a heartbreaking attempt at a smile, while a 10 year old Finn looked at the camera, holding up dirty hands, laughing.

“I always wondered why she looked so sad.” 

“She were unwell.”  Rae responded.

“And he did nothing about it.”

“Finn.  Sometimes with these things, there’s nothing you can do.”  She tried to explain, “He probably tried as hard as he could.  But some stuff… can’t be fixed.”  Finn turned his eyes to her.

“At your mum’s wedding.”  He looked as if he was thinking about something painful, “When you… you told everyone about the mental hospital.  I were so selfish.”

“No Finn.”  Rae tried to alleviate his pain.

“I kept thinking, why didn’t I notice?”  He shook his head, “I kept banging on about how you were the most normal.  How you kept us all together.  But…” He sucked his bottom lip as he searched for the word, “But you needed me.  And I didn’t know.  And you didn’t tell me.  And…” He moved uncomfortably, as if the though was fighting it’s way out of his throat.

“It’s not gonna happen again.”  She answered his fear.

“Dad thought he weren’t enough for mum.  And he weren’t.  What if… What if I’m really not enough for you?”

“Finn.  You.  Are.  Not.  Your.  Father.”  Rae answered resolutely.  “We are not your parents, ok?”  He nodded, wanting to believe her.  “I will tell you, I if need help.”

“Your stuff is my stuff.”  He touched her face, still trying to convince himself.

“But you have to tell me when you’ve got stuff too, ok?”  He nodded slowly.  “Finn, we’re gonna get through this, and anything that comes up.”  They settled into a comforting hug and Finn looked back down at the photograph.

“Do you think she really did love me?”

“Yes.”  Rae answered unreservedly, “She just didn’t see any other way out.”  Rae understood what it was like to feel that way; to feel as though leaving everything behind was the only thing you could do.

Despite all of her problems, not the least of which was a fear of harming Finn, Rae felt a huge amount of sympathy for Kenzie Nelson.  There was a time she might have made the same decisions in her place.  But she was learning more and more how to not run away from the things that were painful and hard. 

“What if you see no other way out?”  He asked delicately, painfully.  She smiled.  It was so strange for Finn to need so much reassurance.

“I got Kester.”  She shrugged, “he’ll help keep me head straight.”

Finn looked back at the photo albums. 

“I feel like everything in me whole life were a lie.”  He turned to look at her, “ ’xcept you.”  He kissed her deeply and she was made breathless by his need for her.  A need that went far beyond physical. 

He held her tightly and she turned pages in the photo album.  A photo of him, sitting on the front of a motorbike, his dad holding him protectively, sitting behind him, caught her eye. 

“It weren’t all a lie Finn.”  She whispered to him, “Your dad loves you.”  She took the photo out of its sleeve and held it up to him.  He took it in slowly, unmoved.

“He lied to me.  For so long.”

“I think… I think he probably thought he were protecting you.” 

Finn scratched his cheek agitatedly.  And looked away.

“Don’t blame him for everything Finn.  He fucked up.  We all fuck up.”  Rae wanted him to feel safe, to feel better so badly, “Talk to him.”  She suggested.

“I don’t… I wouldn’t know what to say.”  His agitation rose. 

Rae sighed and slowly positioned herself to be straddling him, her arms around his neck.  She kissed him and felt his agitation settle.

“You don’t havet’a know what to say all the time Finn.  You just have to try.”

He looked away.

“Promise me you’ll try and talk to your da.”  She said resolutely.

“Alright.”  He answered reluctantly. 

She held up the photo and Finn looked at it. 

“That were me 11th birthday.”  He said softly.  “Me an Archie an’ a couple o’ other boys all got to go motor biking round the countryside with our dads.  Then we went to the pub for lunch.  Archie puked after he had some beer.”  Finn smiled and Rae laughed softly.  “Mum had only been gone for a few weeks.  But da was… he were…” Finn looked at the photo.  “He made sure I had a good day.”  He finished softly.  “It were the first time I’d smiled since she’d left.  I remember that.”  His fingers traced down the photograph and understanding filled his face, “he were trying to be strong for me.” 

“He should’a talked to you sooner.  But you Nelson men are good at not talking.”  She reminded him and he nodded. 

“I’m getting better but?  Aren’t I?”  He asked anxiously. 

“Stop fretting.”  She smiled and he touched her face, “you are perfect Finn.” 

She kissed him and stroked his hair gently. 

“Can I stay at yours tonight?”  He ran his hands up her back slowly, “I don’t want’a be here when he gets back”

Rae studied his face and slowly nodded.

He left a scrawling note on the fridge: ‘at Rae’s’

They walked to her place, arm in arm, slowly, feeling the sun losing its battle with the icy wind.  Finn carried his backpack in his hand, the straps dangling on the ground.  He intended to go to College from Rae’s place tomorrow.

They’d already decided that Finn would crawl through her window; it was easier than trying to deal with Linda in the mood he was in. 

They kissed at the road, Finn making a beeline for the garage roof as Rae opened the front door. 

“Mum?”  She called as she dropped her keys on the table.  She walked into the kitchen and saw her mum rocking Aiesha, crying. 

“Oh hi Rae!”  She sniffed hard and wiped her nose, “I thought you were at Finn’s.”  She continued absent-mindedly. 

“He had to do some stuff.”  Rae lied, a questioning look on her face, “you alright?”

“Oh just got the weepies.  You know?”  He voice was high, almost shrill and she held Aiesha a little tighter.

“Alright.”  Rae answered, not sure how to respond. 

“You and Finn are ok?”  She asked, keeping her eyes on Aiesha.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”  She cooed to Aiesha through tears. 

“I mean he’s had some bad news.”  Rae continued, watching her mum’s responses.

“Oh?”  She rocked Aiesha gently.

“But we’re solid.”

“Well I hope I didn’t hear him sneaking up onto the garage roof a few minutes ago.”  She looked up at Rae, tears glistening on her cheeks.

“I… dunno…” Rae tried to think of an appropriate response.

“Must be hearing things.”   She looked back down at Aiesha.

“Right, well… I’m gonna go up to me room.”

“Try to keep it down up there.”  Linda turned away, still rocking Aiesha. 

“I will.”

She climbed the stairs with a confused look on her face, and opened her door to see Finn sitting on her bed grinning. 

_It were nice to see a real smile on his face._

_I hoped we’d gotten through the worst of this._

_But I knew there’d be more to come._

_There’s always more._

_People don’t just get over things._

_There’s always that doubt in the back of your mind._

_Those thoughts that come to you in the middle of the night._

_The constant gnawing of inadequacy._

_I wished Finn had never had to feel any of it._

_But I were determined that I wouldn’t add to it._

_I were determined that I would see him through it._

She dumped her bag on the floor, put some music on and sat down on the bed next to him.  He took her hand and they listened to the music for a while. 

“How would you like to spend your Sunday afternoon Miss Earl?”

“With you.” 

Finn leaned in, his hand on the back of her neck, His eyes lingered on hers for a moment before flicking to her lips.  His lips gently grazed hers, and she saw him close his eyes tightly before he kissed her with deep intensity. 

“You got any crap reggae for me?”  He smiled tracing words on her back: _you’re my world_.

“No, but I got some crap hip hop for you.”

“Oh?”  Finn’s smile almost looked like him again.  Just more bruised, more world-weary.  But no less in love. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘El Scorcho’ by Weezer _

 

Linda slammed the door open again.

“Mum!”  Rae sat up, but Finn stayed lying in the bed, putting the pillow over his head and groaning. 

“Get ready for school.”  She said snappily, “and he can’t stay on school nights.” 

“I’ve gotta get a lock on that door.”  Rae mumbled murderously as her mother stormed out of the room. 

 

 

Linda lectured them on the entire drive to school.  Finn sat in the back seat with his head down, nodding and commenting at the appropriate moments quite dutifully.  But Rae argued until pink spots rose on her cheeks. 

_I try not to get in the way of Rae and her mum when they’re like this._

_But if Rae gets too upset I can’t help myself._

_I know I should keep me mouth shut._

_I know I’m skating on pretty fucking thin ice with Linda at the minute._

“It’s fine Mrs Bushtat.  You’re right.”  Finn said softly, “I shouldn’t stay on school nights.” 

Rae looked over the seat murderously at him, but he winked cheekily and she had to stifle a smile. 

“Rae’s gotta focus on her school work.”  He continued.

“Well I’m glad you see it Finn.”  Linda answered perceptively, “but I’m sure the only nights you won’t be climbing in that window is when she’s on her period.” 

“MUM!”

_I kinda like it when Rae blushes like that._

_Don’t smile Finn._

“I should put a padlock on that window.”  She mused.

“Oh that’d be great if there’s a fire!”

“You just go out your door Rae!”

“What if the hallway’s on fire and the only way out is my padlocked window?”

Linda grimaced at Rae as she pulled up to the school.  She turned to Finn.

“If she means anything to you, you won’t ruin her chances of getting a good education.”  Her eyes bore into him.

“I won’t.”  Finn answered seriously, “I don’t want’a ruin anything for Rae.”  She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Good.  See that you don’t.”

Rae got out of the car and slammed the door as hard as she could.  Finn watched the care drive off thoughtfully before turning to her.

Finn turned to look at the College buildings and then looked back at her.

“Am I allowed to hold your hand?”  Rae looked down at his outstretched hand, “you didn’t seem to like it last time.”  He explained. 

Finn watched as a series of emotions went over her face, uncharacteristic silence following them.

“What’s in your head girl?”

She looked away, and Finn stood there silently watching her. 

_I really just want’a walk into that place with her._

_If I have to go there, I want it to be with her._

“Rae?”

“I just…”  She bit her bottom lip and looked at him.  “I haven’t gotten over it yet.”

“Over what?”

“The reason.”

“The reason?  That you don’t wanna be seen with me?”  Finn lowered his eyes and turned away, “ok fine.”  He shook his head and started to walk away. 

“No Finn!  Wait!”  He turned back to her warily.  “It’s not that.  It’s just…”  He watched as she caved in and knew she had to tell him, “I’m embarrassed for you to be seen with me.”

“For me?”  He as bewildered. 

_I don’t understand._

_When I were working I spent lunch with her on the back tables._

_The back tables where no one really goes._

_So no one would see us._

_Right._

“To be seen with me.”  She added and lowered her eyes, ashamed.  Finn looked around at the dozens of students walking up to the school.  He saw Chop and Izzy saying farewell near the main entrance. 

_Oh and here’s Stacey and her mates._

_She doesn’t want me to be seen with her in front of all these twats?_

_I don’t give a fuck what they think._

He looked at Stacey, who was staring at him, and then back at Rae, her head lowered. 

He stepped closer to her.

“Rae?”  She looked up at him, “I’m not embarrassed to be seen with you.  I like being seen with you.  You’re beautiful, why wouldn’t I want everyone to see me with you?”

“Finn.”  She tried to counter him.

“You.  Are my girl, Rachel Earl.”  He said inflexibly and without warning kissed her heatedly, pouring out as much lust into the kiss as he dared in so public a space.  He pulled her tightly into his arms, one hand dropping to her arse, the other tangling in her hair, his pelvis tilting in towards hers.

He could hear comments, some laughter, Stacey complaining. 

But his focus was on the gentle moan of desire that left her throat.  When he stopped kissing her he had to smile at the stunned look on her face.

“Did we just have sex?”  She joked and took a steadying breath. 

“Later.  I think there’s a disabled toilet with our names on it.”  He teased.  She narrowed her eyes at his grinning face and looked at his hand as he held it up to her.  “Since your reason for not holding me hand is rubbish, I’m not taking no for an answer.”  He wiggled his fingers at her.  And she laced her fingers between his with a begrudging grin.

“Alright then.”  She feigned displeasure but quickly had to return to smiling when they started to walk towards the main building holding hands, Finn smiling with a mixture of pride, smugness and unabashed happiness.

_I hate this place._

_But it’ll be better this time._

_I got my Rae._

_Who the fuck’s this?_

A mix of contempt, confusion and displeasure spread over his face as a dark haired boy, slightly taller than him, walked up to Rae, completely ignoring Finn’s existence.

“Hi Rae.”

He enjoyed the look of no recognition on Rae’s face as she looked at him.

“Hi.”

“It’s Phillip.”

“Phillip!  Oh right!”

“I’m in your performing arts class.”

“Oh that’s right!”  Recognition started to creep into Rae’s eyes.

_I don’t like this guy._

“I just wanted to say that you’ve got the most beautiful singing voice.  I were quite moved when I heard you giving ol’ Sinead a whirl.”

_I don’t like him at all._

“Thanks Phillip.”  She smiled self-consciously, but still pleased. 

“You can call me Phil.”

“Phil.”

“Well, Elsa wanted me to help you write some of the musical numbers for the school play.  So, we’ll get to work together this term.  Quite closely.”  He said rather expectantly.  Finn’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh hi Bill, I’m Finn, Rae’s boyfriend.”  Finn not so subtly placed himself slightly in between Phillip and Rae.

“It’s… it’s Phillip.”  He said nervously. 

“Oh right.  Phillip.”  The last P popped out of his mouth derisively.  Phillip held out his hand to shake and Finn looked at it for a moment and then back at his face.

“Ok.”  Phillip said dropping his hand and backing away from Finn slightly as Finn grinned at him like he would like to cut that hand off.  “I’ll see you in performing arts class Rae.”  He looked at her longingly for a moment and then turned to leave.

“I’ll see you there too.”  Finn called after him.

_Right.  Well I guess I better enrol in the performing arts class now._

_Shit._

_I hate performing arts._

The bell rang and Finn turned to Rae, she had a slightly exasperated look on her face.

“What was that?”

“He were flirting with you.”

“No he wasn’t!”  She shook her head at him, “But y’are cute when you’re jealous!”  She grinned and hardly noticed all the students milling around them as he kissed her. 

“When’s performing arts class?”

“Fourth period.”

“Right, I’ll see you in break then.”  He kissed her again and headed towards the administration office to change his classes.  Rae watched him leave, shaking her head.  Then she turned and headed to math class. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Television, The Drug Of A Nation’ by Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy _

 

“I don’t just want one dimensional exploration of issues!”  She walked amongst them in sky high heels, a black pencil skirt and deep blue shirt, her hair in a high ponytail.  “What’s something that affects teenagers?”  Finn walked in late, paused when Elsa turned her eyes to him, unimpressed.  He pulled a face and sat down on the floor near the door, nodding at Rae across the room.  Elsa turned and pointed at a student, inviting an answer to her question.

“Unwanted pregnancy.”  Stacey said confidently.

“Excellent Stacey.  Now there’s an obvious human element to that.  You need to tell that story.  But there’s more.  Why is unwanted pregnancy an issue for teenagers?”

“Cos we like fucking!”  One of the second year boys piped up.

“Ah that’s true enough Josh!”  Elsa laughed.  “But what else?”  She pointed at Rae

“Contraception.”  Rae answered softly.

“Contraception.  Chloe?”

“Education.”  Chloe added.

“Contraception and education.  Now at this college, we do sex education separately; boys in one class, girls in the other, was it like that in your last school?”  The general consensus was that it was, “right, so how much do the boys in this room now about vaginas?”  There was a silence, “do you know about periods?  And girls, what do you know about how semen is made inside a boy?”  She sat on the stage, “the other story to unwanted teen pregnancy is fear of sex.  It’s fear of people your age having sex.  It’s in lack of education, and lack of readily available and cheap, or even free, contraception available to you.  You tell the human story to punch the heart out of your audience, you tell this other story to pull their minds towards you.  Make a point!”  She looked around at her students “but you must do it well, a sledgehammer is never appreciated by an audience.  Art is the expression of the human soul, of the human experience, of the human condition.   Remember that and write beautifully!”  She said with an impassioned smile, “I want you to pair up with someone that you haven’t worked with before and create a short performance piece about an issue that affects young people – 10 to 15 minutes long at most.  I want you to punch me in the heart and in the brain.  Get on it.”  She turned away and picked up some papers. 

Finn sighed and slowly stood up.  He was about to wonder over to Rae when he saw Phillip walk up to her, placing his hand on her lower back, she turned to him smiling, her smile dropping slightly when she saw that it wasn’t Finn.  She nodded to what he was saying and shot Finn a glum, apologetic shrug.  Finn narrowed his eyes slightly, sucking his teeth, unimpressed.

“Finlay.”  He heard a familiar voice say almost seductively.

“Stacey.”  He replied stiffly.

“Looks like we’re partners, again.” She added sweetly.

“Looks like it.”  He smiled grimly.

“Oh come on!”  Her laugh tinkled through the room and Rae turned her eyes towards him, “I remember a time when you quite liked being partnered with me.”

“Aye, it were temporary though.”  Her smile dropped slightly.

“Right, everyone has a partner?  Great, you’ll be developing these skits with your partner over the next month for the regional sixth form performing arts competition.  The best three duologues will be sent ok?”  Elsa called out.  “Then we’ll do some comedy pieces too.  We’ll be doing these as well as your solo performances, the end of year play, your performing arts history and your stage hand work.  Got a lot to do, so get to it.”  Finn looked over at Rae’s very unimpressed face.

“You and me both girl.”  He muttered to himself. 

“What was that?”  Stacey asked.

“Nothing.  What d’you want to do?”

“We could do sex.”

“No I don’t think so.”  Finn answered stiffly as they sat down to plan out their performance piece.

“What about body image struggles?”

“Right and what d’you possibly have to say about that?”  He asked, annoyed, because he knew she loved her body.

“I have days when I feel fat Finn.  Although, not as many as you nowadays.”  Finn ran his tongue along the inside of his teeth and shook his head.  Finn opened his mouth to retort but Elsa walked up behind him, pen and notepad in hand, taking down everyone’s pairings and topics.

“What’s your topic?” 

“We’re thinking body image.”  Stacey said sweetly.

“No we’re not.”  Finn countered testily.  Elsa’s eyes moved from Finn to Stacey and back.  He could see her considering the situation and willed her to understand his reservations.  He heard Rae laughing and looked over to her and Phillip; Phillip was telling a joke of some sort.  Elsa’s glance followed Finn’s glare and she sighed.

“Well if you can’t decide I’ll assign you one.”  She said curtly, “Do drugs.  It’s probable that everyone else will be too afraid to do it.”  She strolled off and Finn watched her leave with a big grin on his face.

“You got a thing for fat girls now?”  Stacey asked as she watched him.

“I like Elsa, she a good teacher.  I love Rae, she’s my girl.”

“You love her?”  Stacey laughed, “That thing?”  She looked over at Rae. 

“You heard me.  And if you talk shit about Rae again, I’ll tell everyone you gave me gonorrhoea.”  Stacey’s nostrils flared in anger and disbelief.

“They wouldn’t believe you.”

“Maybe not.  Let’s see shall we?”  Finn smiled sweetly.

“They’ll think you’ve got it too.”  She said horrified, but Finn laughed.

“I don’t give a fuck!”  He shook his head, “I never cared what those twats think.”  He smiled lopsidedly, pleased that he had managed to shut her up, for a while, “now let’s do drugs hey?” 

 

 

Rae sat alone; Phillip had gone to the bathroom.  Elsa came to look at their work so far.

“Looks good.”  She read over their notes, “you’ll make a great writing duo.”  She mused.

“Elsa, do we have to work in these pairings for the month?”  Elsa watched Rae’s eyes on Stacey and Finn, their heads together Finn angrily writing something and Stacey smiling sweetly. 

“Why do you have a problem with Stacey and Finn working together?”  Elsa asked in a low private voice.  Rae looked up at her and decided to just tell her.

“They used to date.”  Rae answered simply.

“Do you think he has any feelings for her?”

“I dunno.  But…”  Rae pulled a face.

“You think she’s prettier than you.”  Elsa answered shrewdly.  Rae nodded miserably, thinking about the way Stacey’s naked body had looked in the girls’ change room. 

“She is.”  Rae’s mouth barely moved.  And Elsa pulled a dissatisfied face.

“She’s not nearly as pretty as you think she is Rae.”  Rae furrowed her eyebrows at Elsa, surprised by her words.

“Aren’t you supposed to tell me that I’m beautiful and that Finn likes me?”

“I could, but you already know that on some level.  What you don’t know is that all these girls you compare yourself to… none of them are as pretty as you think they are.”

“You don’t know how pretty I think she is.”

“No thin girl is as pretty as a fat girl thinks they are.”  Elsa answered firmly.  “Stacey is a teenaged girl, just like you.  She has pros and cons, just like you.  She is lucky that the current media climate favours her appearance over yours.  But that doesn’t mean she’s as pretty as you think she is.  Nor does it mean that she’s prettier than you.”  Elsa shrugged, “opt out of the competition Rae.” 

“Competition?”

“The idea that women belong on a ranking scale.  The idea that we’re in competition with each other.  Opt out.  It’s better for you sanity, trust me.  We ladies should stick together.”  She smiled winningly, “I think you’ll get through this month just fine.  Just make sure you grab Finn for next month.  I think you’ll create comedy gold together.”  She looked up and scanned the room.  She saw Chloe looking down as Josh, a second year student, gesticulated vehemently. 

Elsa pursed her lips and sauntered over, watching the body language between the two.  Chloe was clearly uncomfortable.

“A word Chloe.”  She said and Chloe jumped up and joined her out of earshot from anyone.

“What’s happening?”  Elsa asked bluntly. 

Chloe hesitated and looked back at Josh.

“Don’t look at him.  Look at me.  What’s happening?”

“He made the topic sex.”  She lowered her eyes.

“And you don’t want that topic?” 

“Not really.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Well I didn’t mind at first, but he wants to… you know… sort of make out for it and he thinks it’s stupid that I don’t want to.”

“Ok.  Well I’ll have a talk to the class about this.  You don’t have to kiss anyone Chloe, ever.  Don’t feel like you do ok?”  Chloe nodded, happier, “I’ll have a chat to Josh.”  She started to turn away.

“Elsa.”  Chloe said almost breathlessly. 

“Yeah?”

“Am I broken?”  The words seem to fall out of her by accident. 

“What do you mean?’  Elsa asked with genuine concern.

“Josh said I were broken cos I didn’t want to be touched.  He said it were just a drama skit.  Didn’t mean anything.”

“Chloe, look at me.”  Elsa said firmly, Chloe raised her eyes to Elsa, “there are a lot of reasons that you might not want to be touched.  And none of them mean you are broken.  Understand?” 

“I feel like I’m broken.”  Chloe answered in a small voice.

“Well I can assure you Chloe, that you are not broken.  Things get broken.  You’re not a thing.  You’re a person.”  Elsa voice was kind but resolute and Chloe nodded, tears forming in her eyes.

“Thank you.”  She whispered.

“You are more than welcome Chloe.  Now, you’ve got a good set of friends yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you can try sharing this feeling with them?”

“Maybe.”

“Ok.  And if you need to talk, you let me know, alright?” 

“I will.”  Chloe agreed.

“Archie.”  Elsa called out and Archie looked up.  She motioned for him to come over.

“You and Chloe are working together now.”  She said decisively.  Archie nodded happily.  “Josh, I think you’d work better with Candace.”  Elsa said as she motioned for Josh to walk with her over to Candace.  Candace looked pleased with that decision, only Josh seemed unhappy about it. 

 

 

“Right.”  Elsa got their attention in the last 10 minutes of the class.  “I want this class to be a place where we can explore all sorts of topics with honesty.  But I also want it to be a place that is safe for everyone.  So we’re going to set some rules.  The first rule I’m gonna set is the stoplights bikini rule.  This is about touching.”  Elsa sat on the stage and managed to cross her leg in her tight pencil skirt.  “So I want you to imagine a bikini.  But not a sexy one, you dirty pervs!”  She joked and several of the guys smiled.  I want you to think about one that you might see a sporting person wear.  Like short bike pants and short singlet type bra.  Got it?”  Everyone nodded, “Here’s the rule.  The areas of your body covered by this bikini are red.  No one ever touches them in this class ever.”

“What about on boys?”  Josh laughed as he pretended to cover his nipples.

“Especially on boys.”  Elsa said with utter seriousness.  “Bikini area – red, no matter what, they will always be red in this room.  Everywhere else on your body is your amber stoplights.  That means that you check with the person before you touch them there.  They need only say yes or no and you do as you’re told.  So, ‘can I touch your lower back in this duologue?’  Is something you might say.  And the person might say; ‘yes, but you can’t touch my sides.’  And you RESPECT THAT.”  Elsa said with authority, “without question, without comment.  That’s the rules.”

“What about the green stoplight?”  Stacey asked with a bemused smile, thinking that Elsa had forgotten it.

“The green stoplight is any place, other than the red zones, that you have been given permission to touch on a specific person at a specific time.  Green can be revoked at any time, and you respect that without question or comment.”  Elsa took a moment to allow that to sink in, “your bodies belong to yourselves.  No one has a right to touch them without your permission, ever.  Not even for theatre!”  Elsa added with a melodramatic flourish.  Chloe smiled, feeling better.

“Now what other rules do you think we need in this room?”

“No slagging off other people.”  Finn spoke up, turning his eyes to Stacey meaningfully before turning them back to Elsa.

“Done.  Others?”

“No making fun of stupid ideas!”  Izzy said nervously.

“Izzy sweetie, there’s no such thing as a stupid idea when you’re making art.”  Elsa paused thinking, “Unless it’s gonna get you killed.”

“What art could get you killed?”  A student laughed.

“Oh thank you Sam.  You’ve just given us our first assignment for the term!”

 

 

“The fuck you doing preforming arts for?”  Archie laughed as they headed for the door.  Finn shrugged.

“I were good at music, thought I’d give it a whirl.” 

In front of them Rae and Phillip stood at the door, talking excitedly over ideas for the end of term drama play.  Phillip reached out and touched her arm, stepping closer.  Finn sucked his teeth moodily as they approached. 

“Oh hey Will how you going?”  He asked with obvious disinterest,

“It’s Phillip, oh…”  Phillip stopped as Finn pulled Rae to him and gave her a sexually charged kiss.  Archie pulled a face.

“That’s fucking pornography, that is.”  He complained loudly.  Finn stopped, still holding Rae, who was left breathless and dazed, and turned to Phillip.

“Sorry did you say something?”

“My name’s Phillip.”

“Oh right.  Sorry.  I got a shite memory.  See you next time.  Bill.”  He turned, holding Rae’s hand and walked towards the cafeteria.

“I’ll call you about the play.”  Rae called over her shoulder to him as Finn marched onward.  Archie, Chloe and Izzy following with a mixture of bewilderment and bemusement. 

“Wow Finn, you’re a bit of a knob when you’re jealous.”  Archie said as they got in line.  Finn shrugged.

“Don’t care if I’m a knob as long as that twat stops trying it on with me girl.” 

“He’s not trying it on!”  Rae said exasperated.

“Aye and Stacey Stringfellow’s a pleasant lass.”  He replied snippily. 

“Finn, we gotta work together to write a play.  So you are gonna have to behave.”

“I will when he does.”

Rae fixed him with a stern glare and he returned it.

“Don’t look at me like that.”  Finn said with a ‘you know I’m right’ tone.  “How does he need to touch your arm when he’s writing a play with you?  Last I checked, arm touching weren’t necessary for that.”

“He’s got a point Rae.”  Chloe teased.

“Yeah Phillip actually really likes you.”  Izzy said in an attempt at teasing.  All eyes turned to her.

“What’s that Iz?”  Finn asked.

“Oh, last year at the performance Phil was banging on about Rae’s voice and how pretty you are.”  Izzy said with a smile.  She nodded and Rae smiled, defeated.  Finn raised his eyebrows and turned his eyes back to Rae.

“So… pretty sure I’d be getting an apology right about now.”

“Ha.”  Rae answered derisively.  Finn narrowed his eyes at her.

“But you were wrong.”

“He might have been saying it ironically.”

“No I don’t think he was.”

“Izzy!”

“Sorry.”

“Or maybe he meant it then, but he don’t now?”

“Oh my god Rae!”  Izzy suddenly said.  “Maybe he sent you the bracelet!”  She said excitedly. 

Finn sucked his bottom lip and narrowed his eyes dangerously. 

“Maybe he’s your secret admirer.”  Chloe agreed. 

“Guys!”  Rae saw the look on Finn’s face, “I’m sure he don’t like me.  I just didn’t feel it there, you know?”

“Well if it weren’t him, who did send it?”  Chloe pondered.

“It’s not a fucking secret admirer.”  Finn snapped moodily, “It’s a fucking stalker.  I can’t believe you’re all trying to guess who it might be like it’s so fucking romantic, instead of worrying about Rae’s safety.”

Chloe tutted and rolled her eyes at him.

“I’m sure Rae’s not in danger!”  Izzy countered, “it’s only been nice gifts that he’s sent.”

“That sounds like admirer to me.”  Chloe said as Finn shot her a dirty look.

“Oh lunch time is going to be a pleasant affair.”  Archie breathed. 

“What you having?”  Finn asked Rae as he got to the front of the line.

“I dunno.  I don’t have much money.”

“I’m buying.” 

“You don’t have to.”  Finn rolled his eyes at her and started ordering a prodigious amount of food. 

5 minutes later they were seated at their favourite table, Finn opening up a paper bag with a huge custard and cream monstrosity in it.  Rae raised her eyebrows at him.

“Felt like eating a cream pie.”  He shrugged moodily. 

“Alright.”  She rolled her eyes at him, “Thanks for the sandwich.”

“Yeah thanks Finn.”  Izzy said around a mouthful of food provided by Finn. 

“S’alright, me dad’s been throwing money at me lately.”  Finn replied still cranky, but Rae noticed him keeping a close eye on how much she ate and had to smile internally. 

“Oh look it’s Phil.”  Chloe said with a cheeky grin.  Finn looked over his shoulder to see Phil and a group of his mates sitting at one of the other tables.  Phil raised a hand to wave at Rae, and Rae waved back.  Finn sighed moodily and turned back to his food. 

Rae scooted closer to him.

“Look, I don’t care if Phil likes me or no.  And I’m not saying he does!”  She answered that look on his face, “I’m taken.”  She grinned at him.  He looked at her grumpily. 

“Alright.”  He conceded, a satisfied smile started to touch his lips. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘I got You’ by Split Enz _

 

Rae sat on the table, waiting for Finn to get out of the first of his makeup exams.  Rae took the rare opportunity to update her diary, she was with Finn so often now that she didn’t get a lot of chances.

_Dear Diary_

_Is it wrong to be glad that Finn will have to repeat performing arts next year?_

_I like the idea of him being around._

_At least next year, Stacey won’t be around._

_Her body is so perfect._

_And her face is like the sun._

_Sometimes I wish I could just put my mind in her body._

_I wonder if Finn would prefer that?_

_I know he says he likes my body.  I quite like that he says that._

_But I can’t help thinking that he likes me in spite of my body.  And I hate that feeling._

_Oh but he’s grumpy today._

_I don’t blame him._

_I don’t know what I’d do if it were my mum._

_Oh god.  Maybe he likes me cos I’m mad, and his mum were mad and he’s got some weird leftover thing for mad girls now._

_Oh don’t think that way._

_You don’t need it._

_Think about something nice._

_Like Finn’s arse._

_I wonder what Finn would do if I actually bit his arse?_

_Maybe I could just lie on it like a pert little pillow?_

_I should just grab it.  And not let go._

_I bet if you was to scientifically measure the curve of Finn’s arse you’d find the definitive answer to all of life’s mysteries.  Especially what makes a woman happy._

_I can’t believe I get to shag him._

_Oh god, if I let myself think about it too much I’ll end up flooding the fucking school._

_Gotta focus on going to Kester._

_I wonder how long it’ll take for Kester to start pissing off Finn?_

_In the mood Finn’s in today, not long I’m thinking._

_Oh look, here he comes._

_He’s still like looking at porn._

He burst out of the building looking as grumpy as ever, lighting a cigarette as he as he marched across the grass to her. 

“Well, I think I’ll be repeating fucking English.”  He spat angrily.  Rae gave him a sympathetic face and started to massage his shoulders when he sat in front of her.  He immediately started to calm down. 

“I’m sorry, it’s my fault; you should have been studying these holidays.”

“Ah it’s alright.  And it’s not your fault.  I knew I’d have to repeat it.  Anyway, it means I get to hang out with you more.”  He grinned up at her. 

“I’ll still be doing advanced English next year.”  He looked glumly at her.

“Well I’ll still have performing arts with you.”  He traced patterns on her calves as she rubbed his neck and shoulders.

_That’s nice_

His fingers wrote.  She smiled and took a quick peak at his watch as he stretched out his arms. 

“We’re gonna have’ta head to Kester’s soon.”  She muttered.

“Good.”  He said happily.

“Good?”

“I’m keen for more Kester.  The more Kester we have the more chance I got o’ keeping you.” 

“You don’t need Kester for that.

“I dunno Rae.  You’re smarter than me.  Funnier than me… you got all sorts of boys chasin’ you.  Like Gil.  He’s a writer too, like you.”

“Are you gonna keep calling him by the wrong name?”

“Aye.”  He nodded resolutely, “when that twat stops going after a girl he knows is taken, I might remember his name right.” 

“He’s not going after me.”

“He likes you.”

“Even if he does, that don’t mean he’s going after me.”

“Rae, I know what going after a girl looks like, cos I went after you.  I know what going after you looks like.”  He said meaningfully, “He made you smile.  He made you laugh.  He’s doing well so far and he’s only one day in.  He’s doing much better than I were at that stage.”  He mumbled, sounding worried.

“Except I’m with you.  So a smile or laugh means nought.”  She prodded him and he got up.  “I don’t even know why you’re jealous of him.”

“Cos I know your worth, and you don’t.”  He said seriously, “so I havet’a jealously guard you.  You don’t realise Rae.”  He shook his head.

“Sure this isn’t you just thinking you’re not enough?”

“Ok, that has something to do with it.”  He took her bag and she smiled lovingly at him.  “But that’s not all of it Rae.”  He assured her and she rolled her eyes at him, but with a happy smile.  He threw both bags over one shoulder and held his hand out to Rae, who took it and started trudging off towards the hospital.

“What do you like about Bill?”

“Phil.  Is a nice bloke.”  She answered.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he’s not the jealous type.”  She teased and watched him drag heavily on his cigarette in reply.  “But he’s no you.”  She soothed. 

“Alright.”  Finn answered moodily, “but what d’you like about me?”

“Everything.”  Rae answered and gave him a shrug when he looked sceptically at her.  “It’s true.” 

“How much homework d’you get?”  He mumbled, changing the topic because he wasn’t sure if he believed Rae, or how to feel about what she’d said. 

“Too much.”  She groaned, “You?”  He shrugged.

“I never do it anyway.”  He mumbled.  Rae stopped walking and turned to him.

“Finn Nelson, how am I s’posed get through university if you’re not there with me?”  She demanded.  He smiled, lopsided; not believing what she did to his insides.

“Alright Miss Earl.  I’ll do me homework.”  He shook his head.  But couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. 

They started walking again.

“It must be nice working with Stacey?”  She tried to make it sound sarcastic, but her trepidation was clear.

“Not even slightly.”  Finn shook his head.  “I never noticed how mean she were.”

“Yeah but she’s so pretty.”

“I guess.”  He said softly, “if you like mainstream.”  She smiled, understanding what he was referencing.

“Well I do like my Beastie Boys.”  She said cheekily. 

“We should head back to the pub this Friday after.  What d’you think?” 

“Get the gang together, and Danny?” 

“Of course Danny, I can’t wait to hear what other tales he can tell me about you!”  Finn teased.

“Piss off!”  Rae laughed. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘So Real’ by Jeff Buckley _

 

“I want to apologise about having to cancel last week.”  Kester lit a cigarette and blew out the match.  “We had an emergency at the hospital.”  Kester dropped his eyes and licked his lips.

“Everything alright?”  Rae asked, noticing his demeanour. 

“Not sure yet.”  Kester replied grimly.  “Hopefully.”

He leaned back in his chair.  “I wanted to start this session by revisiting something I noticed last session.”  Kester licked his lips and turned to Finn.  “Finn,” Kester continued more delicately than Rae had ever seen, “you feel very... Protective of Rae.”

“Yep.”  Finn answered immediately.

“Would you say possessive?”

“Yes.”  He nodded again.  Kester paused and wiped his hand over his face in thought. 

“Why, would you say, are you so protective of Rae?”

”She me girl.”  He shrugged as if that was obvious.  And then after a moment’s thought, “she needs it.”

Kester paused a moment and turned to Rae.

“What do you think of this?”  Rae gave him a frustrated glare.  And frantically tried to think of the right thing to say.

“I guess…” She said slowly.  “I guess I’m most worried that he’s gonna get hurt.”

“Why?”

“He can be pretty hostile to guys he thinks are trying it on.”

“I don’t think, I know.”

“Phillip is not trying it on.”

“You only think that because you don’t realise how beautiful y’are.”  Finn retorted and Rae sighed exasperated.  “It’s not just him.”  Finn continued, “that guy I smashed at the pub, those guys in the pub in Sutherland, the guys at football practice.”

“Which guys at football practice?”  Rae scoffed.

“When I hurt myself and you took me int’a changes rooms, those guys who were laughing.”

“Yeah cos I’m ugly and I’m with a fit boy.”

“No they was talking about motorboating your tits.”  He returned.

“What?”  Rae asked with a shocked face.

“I didn’t say anything cos I knew you hadn’t heard what they was saying.  And you’re not ugly Rae.”  He snapped.

Rae thought back to that day, the way that laughter had made her feel.  The shame and embarrassment she’d felt. 

“What the fuck’s motorboating?”  She blurted out.  Finn blushed and looked, from lowered eyes, at Kester who was smiling, amused.

“I’ll show you later.”  He said under his breath, wishing Kester wasn’t there. 

“Why can’t you just tell me?”

“Cos I can’t, alright?”  Finn answered testily.  Rae went to reply, but Kester decided to move on the conversation.

“Finn, you seem to see a lot of men looking at Rae?”

“I’m not imagining it, if that’s what you mean.”  His anger starting to pique.  “That guy in the pub fucking grabbed her.”  Kester furrowed his brows and leaned forward.

“The guy that you ‘smashed’?”  Kester narrowed his eyes almost imperceptibly. 

“Aye.”  Finn answered, “and I’d do it again.  And no amount of therapy’s gonna change that.”  Finn asserted stridently.  Kester decided very quickly that Finn was too resistant to that topic to discuss it with him now, so turned to Rae instead.

“And this is why you’re worried he’ll be hurt?”

“Yes.”  Rae said softly.  Kester turned his eyes meaningfully to Finn. 

“I know she’s worried.”  He answered, “but it’s me job to protect her.  She’s me girl.”  Finn’s answer was immutable to him, and his tone made that clear. 

Kester sucked his teeth for a moment, considering. 

“So, you are protective and possessive of Rae.  And aggressive towards other men who come near her?”

“Not all.  I wouldn’t smash Archie.”  Finn answered with a grin. 

“He’s gay.”  Rae answered moodily.

“Or Chop.”  Finn snarked.  “Cos I know they’re not after you.  And I know they won’t hurt you.”

“Would you say you have a temper problem Finn?”

“Yes.”  Finn answered simply.  Kester looked surprised by his response. 

“Well that was easier than I expected.”  He said with a small smile.  “Would you say you’re jealous?”

“Yep.”  Finn sat, leaning back in his chair, his arms crossed across his chest, moody, sullen. 

“Would you agree with that?”  Kester asked Rae.

“He’s not as bad as it sounds.”  Rae tried to catch Finn’s eye but he was staring resolutely at his shoes.  “He makes me feel very safe.  I just think he sees more from the guys around me than there is.”  Finn shook his head instantly.

“Nope.”  He answered firmly.  Kester scratched his nose and looked at Finn.

“Are you angry?”

“More irritated.  But it don’t matter.  I’ll keep answering your questions.”  He looked at the wall with grim determination, “Whatever it takes.”  Kester leaned back in his chair, understanding what Finn meant. 

“Let’s talk about jealousy, which I saw a lot of last session, and even more this session.”  He licked his lips and looked at Rae, “do you think jealousy is an issue in your relationship.”

“Yes.  I’m very jealous of every girl that comes near him.  Even Chloe and Izzy.”

“Why would you be jealous, I’m not gonna do anything with them?”  Finn glared at her, obviously hurt. 

“Then why are you jealous?”  She retorted, “d’you think I would?”

“No.”  Finn answered as if the answer was obvious, “but I know what guys are like.  And I know that you don’t realise what they’re like.  And you don’t know how stunning y’are and you don’t know your own worth.”

“Yeah that don’t matter, do it?  Cos I’m not gonna do anything with ‘em, no matter what they’re like!”  Rae answered exasperated.  “You don’t trust me!”  Finn groaned in frustration.

“It’s not you that’s the problem Rae, it’s them.  I don’t trust guys!”

Kester cleared his throat And Finn turned to look at Kester before Rae did.  Kester saw the fire in Rae’s eyes, the moodiness in Finn’s body. 

“Jealousy is often about fear.”  He said softly.  “What do you fear Finn?”

“She gonna trust some guy, not realising what guys are like, and end up drunk or drugged at his house and he’s gonna hurt her.”  Finn said angrily.  And Rae’s eyes softened. 

“That’s definitely one part of your fear.  But there is another part.  Another thing you fear.”  Kester ran his tongue across his teeth thoughtfully, watching Finn struggling to not close up. 

“Yeah.”  He answered stiffly.  Kester watched him in silence.  Finn’s eyes searched the floor for nothing, he bit the inside of his mouth.  “I’m scared of losing her.”  He continued reluctantly.  Rae opened her mouth but Kester gave her a small shake of the head. 

“Why is that?”

“I already lost her twice.  Don’t know if we’ll survive a third time.”  He looked up at Kester, “and I can’t be without her.  She’s my world.  And without her…”  He thought for a moment, “Everything is dead inside of me.”

“You said last session that you kept all the pain inside of you from the first time you broke up?”  Finn nodded.  “Would you like to talk about that?”  Finn shook his head.  But Kester stayed silent, crossing his leg over his knee, making a show of getting comfortable.  They waited in silence.  All eyes on Finn.

“Why’d you dump me Rae?”  He asked without looking at her. 

“I told you.”  She said sadly, “I didn’t think it were fair to you, that I couldn’t let you touch me.  I couldn’t let you enjoy my body the way I enjoyed yours.”  Finn turned his eyes to her.

“Was there anything I did that made you go?”

“No.”  Rae furrowed her eyebrows at him.  “It were all me.”  She spoke calmly, resolutely, but in her mind she was making connections.  She turned to Kester.  “His mum abandoned him.”  She said softly.  And Kester’s eyebrows raised as he turned his eyes to Finn. 

“Do you feel your mother left because of you?”

“She did.”  He said with a bitter smile, “I got the letter to prove it.”  He shrugged, “but I burned it.  It’s gone now.”  He looked away.  “But I want to talk about that on Thursday.”  He turned to Rae, “it’s not about us.”  He explained.  Both Kester and Rae knew otherwise, but Kester let it slide for now.

“So what hurt you about Rae breaking up with you?”

“Are you joking?  She dumped me!”  Finn scoffed. 

“Yes but what about that hurts you?”

Finn looked at Kester confused. 

“I guess…” He paused.  “You know… she didn’t trust me.  She didn’t think she could rely on me.  She didn’t talk to me about this stuff.”  His body moved with agitation, and Rae felt tears prick at her eyes as she watched him gesticulate and fumble over painful words.  “I were so inadequate as a boyfriend that she didn’t feel like she could tell me any of it.  She just broke up with me, with no explanation, no discussion.  Just… this is the new fact of our lives.”

Rae was stung by his choice of words, the parallel he drew between herself and his father.  His father that had lied to him for seven years.

“Am I really that much like your father?”  She whispered.  And she saw Finn’s bad temper instantly disappear when he realised what he’d done.

“I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry.”

“Finn?  Was I like your father when we broke up?”  She waited for him as he stared at the floor.

“I suppose.  A little.”  He answered sadly.  “You just made up the decision for me”  He started to look up at her but stopped, dropping his eyes back to his feet, “You didn’t think I could handle the truth, kept it from me.  Changed my world.”

“Because I thought I were being strong for you.”  A tear fell down her face as she took in how much damage she’d done to him.  “But really it were the worst thing I could o’ done.”  She took a deep breath.  “I’m sorry Finn.”

“I already forgave you.” 

“But let’s just take a moment to acknowledge the pain that exists surrounding this event.”  Kester leaned forward.  “For you Finn, and also for you Rae.”  Finn stared at the wall and Rae nodded. 

“I don’t think you’ll ever know how sorry I was, and still am, about that whole thing.”  Rae’s voice cracked slightly, and Finn turned his eyes to her.

“Why don’t you try to explain?”  Kester prodded as he lit another cigarette.  Rae looked away from Finn’s intense stare. 

“I wanted so much to lose my virginity to you.”  Her voice rose in pitch and Finn felt himself leaning forward in his chair, wanting to go to her.  “But every time we started to get closer… I were paralysed by the fear that you’d…”  She sniffed and Kester offered her the box of tissues.  “Thanks.”  She said taking one and turned back to Finn.  “Maybe you’d compare my body to Stacey’s.”  She finished.  “Maybe you’d see and you’d pull away in disgust.”  She picked at her nails and thought about what happened in the time they were apart.  “You started dating Olivia, and she were so thin and beautiful… and… I can’t understand why you’d be with me… And Liam were there.  And he… He wanted to leave clothes on.  And being with him were better than any time I cut myself or burned myself with shower water.  It killed every pain inside.  And it punished me enough for the way your voice sounded when you asked me what you’d done wrong.”  Tears streamed down her face, and she raised a shaking hand to her face to wipe them away.

“I’m so sorry for Olivia Rae.”  His voice broke as a tear slid down his face. 

“She was so beautiful.  I understand why you’d want to be with her.”

“It weren’t like that.”  He looked over at the clock, hoping the session was nearly over so he didn’t have to tell her this.  But there was still time.  He lowered his eyes, feeling the shame wash over him.

“On that Friday…”  Finn sucked on his bottom lip for a while, “I were at this fucking posh restaurant with me mate and these two birds right… one of them were Olivia.  And she were giving me signs that she were keen on me.”  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, “I weren’t even slightly interested.  I just kept thinking about you Rae.”  His finger found the ragged cuticles around his nails and started to pull at them mercilessly.  “And there’s this window at the front of the place, and I keep looking out of it, cos I ain’t listening to anything that she saying to me; she pretty boring.  She weren’t you.  I see Chlo crying and stumbling up the road.”  Finn grimaced in memory.  “And I go out to her, cos she me mate.”  Finn paused, not wanting to continue.  “And she tells me that you was with Liam all this time.  And you was lying about it cos he’s got a girl.”  Rae started to open her mouth.

“We’ll wait until Finn’s finished, Rae.”  Kester said softly, and Rae snapped her mouth shut.  Finn turned his eyes to Rae and then Kester.  He bit the inside of his mouth, harder than usual and tasted blood.  He took a deep breath.

“I dunno what happened but… until then… I think I had hope that it were all a mistake and we’d end up back together.”  He shrugged, “I were feeling pretty shite, but after what Chlo said… I were gutted.  I felt kinda hollow inside.”  Finn pulled his hands into tight fists.  “And I felt real angry, I guess.  I’m not sure if angry’s the right word.”  He looked up at Kester but didn’t wait for his reply, “And I went back in, and I sat down for about 10 minutes listening to their shite, and then I asked Olivia to leave with me.  We went to her car.”  Finn stopped.  He turned to look at Rae.  “You know, when Stacey’s mum kicked me out of her house.  I were right pissed off.  I’d been about 3 centimetres away from losing me v-plates.”  He smiled sadly, “but when I started liking you, I were right glad that I never got there with Stace.”  He looked at the floor.  “It’s so weird Rae, but you make me feel like I’ve never touched a girl before.  Even now, after everything we’ve done together, I still feel like a virgin every time we kiss.  It’s crazy.  I get so nervous and… I get butterflies in me tummy… every time with you.”  Finn knew he was stalling, not wanting to get to what happened in the back of Olivia’s car, but he was also wanting Rae to understand.  “I so wanted you to be me first.”  He pulled at one of his nails.  “That nice caravan weren’t just for your first time.  I wanted it to be nice for me too.  For both of us.”  He knew he couldn’t stall for much longer and looked up at the clock.  He swallowed hard and studied his feet.  “After I heard you was with Liam.  You was fucking with him…  I… kinda lost myself a bit.  I took Olivia to her car.  And… I fucked her.  Hard.  In the back seat.”  Finn started to feel his eyes stinging, “I took her from behind cos I didn’t want’a see her face.  And every time she turned to look at me over her shoulder, I’d stop her.  I hated her.”  Finn let the tears drop from his eyes.  “I tried to fuck you out of me system Rae.”  He smiled bitterly, “The first time I had sex, I hated the women it were with.  I hated her cos she weren’t you.”  He took a deep breath, “it weren’t what I imagined it’d be.”  His voice sounded numb and Rae felt her own tears dripping down her cheeks.  “So after that we kinda fell into dating.  I decided that I should try to put you behind me and that I’d give it a real go with Olivia.  She were a nice lass really.  She just weren’t for me.”  Finn finished softly.  Rae sniffed in the silence that followed and Kester shifted in his seat. 

“You both seem to have had some very painful sexual experiences.”  Kester said softly.  “And I want to perhaps move away from this painful topic for now, and address it again at a later time.”  He took a deep breath and looked first at Finn and then at Rae.  “Right now, I’d like for us to think about something pleasant.  Something good from your shared history.”  He looked around the room, thinking.  “Let’s go with first kiss.  Rae, I’d like you to describe your first kiss in detail, all the thoughts and feelings you had that Finn couldn’t possibly know about.  And then Finn, you’ll do the same.” 

Rae hitched in a shuddering breath and sniffed again, using the tissue to wipe her eyes.  Finn kept his red eyes to the floor, his heart aching and his cuticles starting to bleed.  He looked at them with a kind of savage satisfaction.  He couldn’t even imagine what Rae thought of him now.  He didn’t think much of himself, why would she? 

“Ok.”  Rae said in a fragile voice.  She worried if Finn thought she were sick for using Liam and sex as a way to self-harm.  She blamed herself for what happened with Olivia.  All she could think about was all the damage she’d done to him.  Kester saw her struggle.  He folded his hands carefully.

“What was happening just before your first kiss?”  He helped her.

“Um…”  She couldn’t bring her mind to that happy moment.  She just kept imagining Finn and Olivia, in a hateful tryst in public, in the back seat of her car. 

“Where you in your room?”

“It were at football.”  Finn proffered.  And Kester turned to him.

“Would you like to go first Finn?”

“Alright.”  Finn nodded.  “I had a game.”  He looked at Rae fondly, “and Rae had come to see it.  And I really liked seeing her there.  Cheering me on.”  He smiled as he thought of what she’d said.  He saw Rae’s chin quiver slightly, she was also remembering.  “And I started to pay a little too much attention to her, and not the game.”  He wiped his tears of his face and took a deep breath.  “And I got cut down by a twat defender.  Bloodied up me leg.”  Finn sat up and looked up, thinking back to the way she looked on the bench.  “We was in the change room. And I was real self-conscious about everything.  Like the smell and how much me leg hurt.  And…” His smile grew, “and she were taking care of me.”  Kester watched Finn’s mood slowly change.  “And I really liked that.  I felt… I dunno… I can’t explain it.”  He blushed. “I felt very… desperate to touch her.”  He struggled to find the right words.  “I wanted very much to kiss her.”  He looked at Rae, she as still looking at the floor, “I wanted to after bowling, but I were too nervous.”  Rae looked up at him, a smile starting to form on her lips.  “We were alone.  She said I were manly.”  He chuckled, “I didn’t know how to take that.”  Finn fidgeted with the hem of his shirt self-consciously, “And she were banging on about being weird and paranoid.”

“I said I weren’t weird and paranoid.”  Rae corrected with a slight grin.

“Aye, I remember!”  Finn nodded, “I remember every word.  But I do like to tease you.”  Rae narrowed her eyes playfully at him and he felt so grateful for her.  “And I couldn’t stop looking at her mouth.”  Finn closed his eyes remembering the moment.  Rae looked at his face, beautiful and perfectly happy in that memory.  She felt happiness slowly creeping into her being. 

“I can’t even explain how much I wanted to kiss you Rae.  And I were waiting for you to shut up so I could.”  He grinned cheekily and Rae felt her face lighting up with the same joy.  “But you kept talking.  So I just kissed you.  Couldn’t stop myself.  Didn’t even realise I were gonna do it, till it were done.  I just had to.  It were like that time I touched you in the pub and had to invent a secret language to cover it up.  But this time we was dating so…” He shrugged, “I got away with it!”  He laughed.  “When I finally put my lips on yours.  It’s like time stopped.”  He took a deep breath, the smile never leaving his face.  “It were the best thing I’d ever experienced.  But I realised that I stopped you mid-sentence, and that you might not have liked it or been ready for it, or even wanted it.  So I stopped and I looked at you to see what you thought.  And I were struck by how beautiful y’are.  It like, stopped me breath in me lungs.  And all I could think was ‘I just kissed her!’ ”  Finn’s eyes were alight with that expression Rae couldn’t fathom, but she was starting to feel that maybe she did understand it.  Maybe she just didn’t know how to believe it.  “And I knew she were the one for me.”  He looked over to her.  “Knew it.”  He said to her.  He swallowed and he nodded his head fondly, “and then she says to me, ‘you don’t have to kiss me, cos you feel sorry for me.’ ”

Kester made a small noise of recognition in his throat, but made no other sign, so Finn continued.

“I couldn’t understand why she’d say that.”  He looked uncomfortable for a moment, “I understand it more now.”  He frowned a little and looked back at her, “I’m sorry I didn’t get it.”

“No it’s ok.”  She smiled adoringly at him.  

“Anyway.  I told her I were kissing her cos I wanted to.  You have no idea how much I wanted to.”  He shook his head to emphasise this, “and also to shut her up.  And I wanted to shut her up, cos I wanted to kiss her more.”  His eyes returned to Rae and he smiled, “it were so perfect for me.  I know you probably wouldn’t’a wanted it in amongst all that smell and blood.  But your mouth is so perfect Rae, and kissing you is one of the greatest things I’ve ever done.” He licked his lips as if her could taste her, “I remember worrying about where to put me hands.  I didn’t want’a go too far and scare you off.”  He chuckled at his own ineptness, “everything about that kiss were perfect.  The way you held me shirt, the way you tasted, that I copped a feel of your thigh.” He gave an appreciative sound, “and I remember putting me hand on your face, and thinking that your skin were just so soft… and your hair were so beautiful.”  He slowly shook his head as if he were in a dream.  “I knew I were in deep trouble when it come to you.”  He joked. 

Kester turned his eyes to Rae.

“It were perfect.  Even with that boy smell.”  She laughed. 

“I sometimes wish it were more romantic like.  For you.”

“I wouldn’t change it.”  Rae replied smiling.

Kester nodded his head, almost imperceptibly and gave a small satisfied smile.

“For all the bad times you have, there are always these good times.”  He said softly.  “Building a relationship relies on shared experiences.  Rae?”  He turned to Rae and motioned for her to speak.

“I kept wondering why you hadn’t kissed me yet.”  She grinned at him.  “You were actually nervous?”  Finn nodded and Rae shook her head.  “But you’d already kissed so many girls?”

“Yeah, but none of them were you.”  Rae laughed, strangely pleased by his words.

“Chloe said that our date at bowling weren’t a date cos we didn’t kiss.  And then she said that maybe you didn’t kiss me cos I…”  Rae pulled a face, “emasculated… demasculated?”  She looked at Kester.

“Emasculated.”  He said softly.

“You.”  Rae continued, “By beating you at bowling.”

“No I liked that you beat me at bowling.”  He grinned, bit his bottom lip and shook his head, “Telling me you couldn’t bowl, you cheeky minx.”  He reminisced and Rae laughed.

“Chloe said I had to find a way to make you feel like a man.  So I went to your football game.”  Finn started to laugh.

“Ah.  I’m right proper manly, right?’  He scoffed and shook his head.

“I were trying to get you to kiss me.”  She retorted, “it worked!”

“You could’a just kissed me.” 

“No, cos Chloe said-”

“Well Chloe’s wrong.”  Finn knew what she was going to say, “I’d of liked it.”  He bit his bottom lip, “but I’m glad it happened the way it did, in the end.”

“Me too.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Pony’ by Ginuwine _

__

They had gone over their time with Kester by 20 minutes before Rae had finished describing her perspective on their first kiss. 

They left his office holding hands, smiling and chatting freely.  Rae wanted to stop of at the library before heading home, and Finn had already decided he was going wherever she went. 

She picked up one of the lollipops on the front counter as she walked into the library.  They were for kids, but Rae almost always snuck one. 

She went to the index cards and started to sort through them.  The lollipop sticking out of her mouth.

“I’m thinking revolutionary or anti-propaganda playwrights for the performing arts essay.  What do you think?”  Rae waited for a reply, but there was none. 

Finn watched her mouth move, lustily.  She pulled the lollipop out as she thought and then popped it back in and Finn’s eyes narrowed with desire.

“Maybe I could go with Stelarc… that’d be unexpected.”  She moved the lollipop in and out of her mouth as she turned over the index card in her hand.  Finn made a soft noise that she took to be agreement so she continued.  “I dunno though, Josh’d probably do something like that.  It’s right up his alley.”  Finn was mesmerised by her mouth as she continued to talk about her homework.  He followed her, as if in a trance as she went to find books. 

After the sixth book was piled into his arms while he watched her mouth suck that lollipop he leaned in to put his mouth next the ear.

“Can we go back to your place now?”  He breathed.  She turned and looked at the pile, slipping the lollipop out of her mouth unaware of what it was doing to him. 

“I suppose that’ll do for now.  What are you gonna do?”

“I’ll look through these books and decide.”  He said hurriedly, “let’s go.”  He almost groaned as her lips surrounded the lollipop again. 

“Alright.  Just one or two more books, yeah?”  She nodded and headed to another aisle.  Finn followed her closely, frustrated, and balancing the books and their bags expertly. 

Another thirty minutes later, and with a particularly throbbing erection, Finn finally dumped the 10 books Rae had chosen on the floor to her room. 

The house was, thankfully, empty. 

She started to go through the books, and Finn sat next to her, trying to get her attention.

“Hey.”  He scooted close to her.  He didn’t know how to ask her for what he wanted.  He leaned in and kissed her lips, still sweet with the confectionary and he groaned.

“Alright?”  She smiled, recognising that groan.

“Sweets taste good on your lips.”  He licked her lips, an idea forming in his mind.  “Be back in a mo.”  He jumped up, Rae noticing the bulge in his pants, and left her room in a hurry.  She shook her head and looked back down at the books. 

Elsa had set a 2000 word essay for first years and 3000 for second, on how performing arts can be dangerous for performers.  She hadn’t meant the danger of a stage light falling on your head either, even though she knew Izzy would probably do an assignment like that.  No Elsa liked deeper things than the obvious.  She knew Archie was going to do his essay on the gay rights movement throughout performing arts, he’d been musing about Oscar Wilde too.  Rae flicked through books about the performing arts in Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany.  She was reading a chapter about Mikhail Bulgakov when Finn came back in, balancing an assortment of food in his arms, a devious grin on his face.

“Hungry?”  She grinned at him, but a confused look crept over her face as she saw the assortment of foods he had.  He put them down on her side carefully; chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, honey, whipped cream and mango ice cream.  He turned to the bed and pushed the blankets off and turned back to her, his mouth open, his tongue licking his top lip, a lusty smile lighting his face. 

Rae looked at him blankly, but when he motioned for her to come to him she did. 

His eyes crawled over her as she walked across her room.  As soon as his fingertips could touch her he started to strip her clothes off her.  He made her lie down on the bed, her legs slightly parted, never saying a word, just keeping his eyes on her, his desire obvious.  He took his own clothes off, Rae watching him silently, smiling at the way his eyes never left her. 

Rae expected him to kiss her as soon as his clothes were off, but he turned to the food, picking up the chocolate sauce, that devious smile on his face. 

Rae’s mouth opened in shock as he carefully poured the sauce on her legs.  He took the caramel sauce and poured that on her other leg.  He used his fingers to slowly dribble honey on her vulva, she felt it starting to drip between her thighs.  He snaked the whipped cream along her chest.  Finishing everything off with a scoop of the ice cream on her stomach.  She gasped from the cold and that made him smile more as he knelt by her feet, his eyes never leaving hers. 

Slowly, he licked the chocolate sauce of her shin, snaking his way up to her thigh.  Rae felt herself whimpering as he kissed her inner thighs where the honey and chocolate mingled, his teeth scraping her gently made her moan.  She felt the mango ice cream melting as he returned to her feet, chocolate sauce on his face, the sexy smile on his face having gained a touch of cockiness; he knew what this was doing to her.  His tongue lapped at the caramel sauce on her other leg, sending shivers through her body, his eyes still on hers.  She watched him lick the entire length of her leg, once again pausing where the honey mingled with the caramel sauce.

She thrust her hips up, wanting him to go down on her.  But he licked her inner thigh until her frustration made her grab his hair.  But he bypassed her vagina, moving up to her stomach, licking up the sticky mess of melting mango ice cream.  Rae inhaled with a shudder as his tongue licked the drips from her side.  She saw his body, leaning over hers, sauces and honey having rubbed off her onto him as his mouth opened as wide as he could to eat the cream off her breasts.  She groaned loudly as he bit her nipples, his body starting to move like sex; his hips grinding slowly.  He kissed her deeply, his face filthy with food, it was like he unhinged his jaw to open his mouth as wide as he could to devour her.  Rae opened her mouth as wide as she could to receive his penetrating kiss, her tongue tasting the journey his tongue had just made up her body.

Slowly he licked his way back down her chest and stomach, stopping where the honey glistened stickily.  He tucked his hands under her arse and tilted her pelvis up to his mouth, burying his face in the sweet honey, his tongue seeking out her clitoris expertly, his eyes still on hers, until her head rolled back with ecstasy. 

Pleasure stuttered through her body like wisps of electricity. 

He licked her whole vagina, the sticky honey requiring a lot of work to suck from her skin, Rae’s throaty moans making his innards throb. 

He hadn’t even been able to slide his fingers into her like he normally did before her thighs started to shake with orgasm, her cries of pleasure making him groan.  He felt her thighs closing around his head and chuckled lustily, pushing them open again as positioned himself to fuck her. 

Rae loved it when he did this.  The fire of her orgasm built up again and she pulled him closer, kissing his lips, tasting honey on his tongue as her second orgasm rocked through her body.

She pushed him off hard, and he understood what she wanted, he rolled onto his back, and she straddled him, rubbing her body on his as he slipped into her again.  She rode him, grinding her hips into his viciously, as his hands travelled over her sticky body, finding all her curves and enjoying the shape of her under his hands.

She slowed down, grinning at him.

“What’s motorboating?’  She asked and he smiled devilishly before sitting up, still inside of her, her hips still grinding into him.  He took her breasts in his hand and rubbed his face between them and all over them.  Rae threw her head back, laughing joyously, at the sound he made as he revelled in her breasts.  He stayed up, wrapping his arms around her lower back, kissing her mouth passionately. 

“Don’t you dare come Finn.”  She whispered to him when he groaned.

“I’m not gonna.”  He smirked dirtily as his eyes returned to the chocolate sauce bottle.  She chuckled sexily, Finn was taken by the way she sounded; she’d never chucked like that.  He realised as she climbed off him and pushed him flat onto the bed that her confidence was growing, and with it, her own sense of sexual exploration.  He laid back with his hands above his head, signalling that he was at her mercy. 

He shivered with delight as she prepared his body in the same way he had hers.  She spent a long time drizzling he honey, very slowly over his erect cock; she loved the way the honey dripped down its length. 

She licked the chocolate from his legs, lingering, as he had at the place the flavours mingled.  He groaned loudly, more frustrated than she’d expected.  But then, this was only the second time she’d be going down on him.  She looked up at his hungry eyes as he saw her face near his cock.  She smiled, teasingly, he wanted this so bad.  She took hold of his honey covered cock, and gently held it flat to his stomach, so she could lick his balls.  She had to stop herself from laughing when she heard the urgency of his groans; feeling herself getting even dirtier than she already was as she licked his balls hungrily.  She pulled away and looked up at him, her mouth centimetres from the tip of his cock.  She saw his eyes on her mouth, his body breathless, his fingers twitching.  He bit his bottom lip.  She could tell he wanted to grab her face and put her mouth on his cock.  She could tell he wanted to tell her to suck him.  She smiled impishly as she withdrew to lick the caramel sauce off his other leg.  The groan this produced was exquisite. 

“Oh god Rae.”  He groaned breathily through gritted teeth.  She slowed down even more to lick his other leg clean and watched his frustration build.  But he kept his hands above his head like they were tied there; wanting her to do this to him in her way.  When she again came to the place the flavours mingled she took her time to lick his thighs, his groin, his balls, everything except his cock, in slow tantalising slurps.  She watched as his hands balled into fists, his eyes watching her with a desire that was bordering on painful.  His whole body was twitching with desire by the time she licked his lower stomach sinuously. 

“Oh fucking hell.”  He murmured as her tongue followed his snail trail downwards and then up, licking the mango ice cream off his shivering skin.  When she moved up his body to his chest he threw his head back, frustrated.

“Rae!”  He moaned as she bit his nipples.  She knew the words were on his lips, she wondered if she should keep teasing him until he ordered her to suck his dick. 

She kissed his mouth, that same full mouthed devouring kiss that he had given her.  He groaned desperately.

“Rae?”  He almost pleaded.  She smiled like a demon and kissed his neck, his groan reaching a new fever pitch as she slowly, so slowly, allowed her mouth to travel down his chest. 

When her tongue swirled across his stomach, his body shuddered.

“Fucking hell.”  He breathed, unable to take his eyes off her as her mouth again reached the top of his snail trail.  He could barely breathe.

He watched her kiss and lick down his pelvis, breathing heavily with desire, his mouth open, his breath hissing out of him with whimpers of almost pleading her. 

She looked down at his penis, glistening with honey.

She stopped suddenly.  A jarring image of other girls hanging off his cock came to him.

“What?”  He asked breathlessly, urgently, “What’s up?”  He demanded.

“So many other girls have sucked your cock.”

“Yeah but none of them were you.”  His voice was hurried, pleading, filled with desire. 

“What if I’m not good?”  The last time he’d pretty much fucked her mouth.  This was different, this time she’d be doing it. 

“Rae.”  He said firmly, “you’ll be amazing.” He seemed almost crazy with desire, “I’m almost nearly fucking coming from what you’ve done already, alright?”  His eyes strayed to her mouth as she hesitated, “oh god please Rae?”  He prayed, “I’ll beg if I have’ta.”  His breath came out in ragged gasps of desire.

“Beg?”  She was struck by the idea.

“Aye.”  He saw her mouth move slightly closer to his cock.

“Beg.”  She said ambiguously, seeing what he’d do.  He smiled lustily at her and nodded.

“Please Rae.”  He said with a fire in his eyes, “Suck my cock.”  He breathed lustily.  She could almost smell and taste his desire; it filled the whole room.  And Rae was struck by just how much she really did affect him.  She smiled cheekily and slowly leaned her face towards his cock.

“Thank you!”  He groaned as she watched her.  But she kept going, back down to his balls taking one of them into her mouth.

“Rae!”  He groaned almost angrily, and she giggled as she took his other ball into her mouth.  His groan was half pleasure and half frustration and she loved it.  She made a promise to herself to attempt to elicit that groan from him as often as she could. 

She slowly licked from the base of his cock to the tip; her action met with a whimper of desire.  His eyes watched her mouth as she slowly took his entire length into her mouth and throat.  The deep groan of satisfaction and pleasure that emanated through his whole body was perfect.  He watched his cock slide in and out of her mouth, breathing heavily, his fingers twitching to be in her hair, biting his bottom lip savagely.  He didn’t even notice how much he was groaning until he let his head drop back. 

“Oh fuck.”  He sighed unable to stop himself from watching her.  That was the best part; that it was her doing it to him.  He watched her tongue curl round the head of his cock and knew he was going to come far too soon.  She engulfed him again and he tried to calm himself, wanting it to last, but he feared he might be already too far gone. 

She cupped his balls and took the full length of him into her mouth again and he felt her tongue on his balls.

“Oh fucking hell.”  He breathed as he felt his orgasm starting to build. 

“I’m gonna come.”  He warned her, and groaned throatily, his twitching hands finally not able to stop themselves as one shot out to tangle in her hair gently.  He expected her to revert to her hand now so she didn’t have to get his come in her mouth. 

“I’m gonna come.”  He warned more urgently as his orgasm peaked and reached the point of no return.  He groaned loudly, watching her mouth moving up and down his cock.  He tried to warn her again, but it was too late and he watched himself coming spectacularly into her mouth with loud appreciative moans.  She didn’t stop, just sucked him until his legs shook and he had to stop her.  She looked up at him, his come all over her mouth, a drop falling from her lips.  She opened her mouth to talk, and he saw his come in her mouth.  She stopped, realising she couldn’t speak without doing something about it.  She swallowed.

“Oh.”  He groaned lustily.  “Oh my god.”  He sat up and kissed her full on the mouth.  “You are so fucking sexy.”  He breathed.  He pulled her to him closely.  Finn felt elated.  Not only had he never had a girl even taste his come before, but she swallowed.  He felt his groin throbbing with desire and knew he wasn’t done yet. 

“I want’a go again.”  He pushed her back onto the bed hard and she laughed as he spread her legs roughly.  His cock still erect and throbbing.  He pulled her to him by the legs and the sheets pulled up as she slid down the bed to him, kneeling, his eyes on fire with lust.  He knelt between her thighs and thrust into her he watched himself entering her and grinned before he settled down to kiss her mouth passionately, violently; tasting himself and honey on her lips and tongue.  He fucked her as hard as he could, his mouth never leaving hers, even when she screamed out in pleasure; even when he came again, with a groan almost as loud as hers. 

He lay atop her, sticky, panting, and so satisfied. 

“We should clean up before mum gets home.”  She whispered to him.  And they sat up slowly.  He looked at her appreciatively.

“You swallowed.”  He grinned foolishly.  She shrugged, not sure what to think about what he’d said.  “It’s so sexy.”  He shook his head in disbelief and appreciation. 

“Alright.”  She blushed and bit her bottom lip.  His eyes were still on her and she felt a little self-conscious.  “I’ll have to do it again then.”

“Yeah?”  He asked happily surprised.  She nodded and he wiped his mouth, “it tastes like shit but.”  He laughed as he grabbed the sheets and wiped his mouth more.

“I don’t think so.”  She shrugged.  “I liked it.”

“Fucking hell.”  He breathed lustily and kissed her mouth again.  “Keep talking like that Miss Earl and I’m gonna have to go again.”  He whispered. 

“Oh you like my dirty mouth?”  She licked her lips teasing. 

“Oh my god.”  He sighed happily, “you’re actually a fucking deviant, aren’t you?”

“Only for you.”  She smiled and got out of bed, semen dripping between her thighs.  He looked at the mess he’d left there, and the remnants of his come still around her mouth, the trail of lick marks across her sticky body. 

“You are actually the most beautiful girl, Rae.”  He reached out and touched her thigh, his fingers staying to the semen drip on the inner thigh, “and so fucking sexy.”  He shook his head, “you have no idea.” 

She smiled and motioned for him to follow her to the shower and he did, his eyes still filled with desire. 

“I’m sorry I haven’t gone down more.”  Rae said as she turned on the water.

“It’s alright.”  He shrugged, “I were more focussed on you anyway.”

“No but I like doing it to you.”  She grinned.

“Oh well then,” he said as if a terrible thing had happened that couldn’t be avoided, “I’ll guess I’ll have to let you then.  As often as you want.”  He watched the water beading on her skin, watched her open her mouth to the shower water, watched how un-self-conscious she was now.  Slowly she grew more comfortable and confident around him. 

He grabbed the soap and knelt in front of her, slowly lathering her feet, and then her legs. 

He washed her whole body slowly, reverently.  And Rae felt like a goddess. 

 

 

“Rae!  You home?”  Linda opened the door to see Rae and Finn, heads down over books.  She saw Finn, his face screwed up reading something and Rae was clearly mid-sentence, obviously explaining; the beginnings of two essays scrawled in two books. 

“Hi Mum.”  Rae smiled.  Linda looked back to Finn who looked up at her with a worried expression.

“Hi Mrs Bushtat.”  He said softly, reminding her that she was supposed to be angry at him.  Her eyes fell to the homework, the pile of library books and then to the tousled bed and two wet towels on the floor.  She noticed that necklace around Rae’s neck again, noticed the happiness exuding from her.

“It’s Linda.”  She said decisively.  And Finn smiled. 

“How’s today been treating you, Linda?”  He asked and she nodded. 

“It’s been fine, you?” 

“Quite good actually.”  He smiled happily. 

“Dinner’s gonna be late,” She said to both of them, “Do you want a snack?”

“Oh no thanks; I’ve eaten.”  Finn said with a straight face but Linda noticed the way Rae had to lower her eyes momentarily before she replied.

“Yeah me too.”  She managed to look relatively innocent and Linda decided to focus on the two essays being written rather than the two wet towels on the floor. 

“Staying for dinner?” 

“If you don’t mind.  It’d save time so we could work longer.”  He answered truthfully. 

“Alright.”  She answered, “But you still can’t spend the night.”

“Oh of course not.”  Finn answered as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Yellow Ledbetter’ by Pearl Jam _

 

When Finn left Rae’s that night he kissed her goodnight at the front door so deeply and passionately and for so long that Linda ended up shooing him away.  Rae pouted after him as he started to leave.

“I’ll be around tomorrow as early as I can, alright?”

“Alright, I’ll do you breakfast.”  She said softly, leaning in for another kiss.

Finn walked home in a happy daze, feeling love flowing through every cell in his body.  Therapy had been hard, but she hadn’t hated him for what had happened with Olivia.  Therapy seemed like the sort of thing that should tear them apart, all the pain that was dragged up and cried over… But therapy was bringing them closer together.  And he couldn’t be happier. 

He had two of Rae’s library books, so he could have a quick look at his homework before returning to her house. 

When he got to his front door, the pain and troubles of the weekend; his mother’s letter rose up into his chest again.  He opened the door, he could hear Janice and his dad laughing at the kitchen table. 

He didn’t know how he felt as he walked silently to the kitchen.  He paused at the door, taking the time to examine his feelings rather than repress them.  Fear was the most prevalent feeling.  He was afraid that he’d look at his father and hate him.  He was afraid of what his father would do when he found out that he’d burned the letter.

He opened the door and walked in, his dad looked up from the scrabble board laid out between them.

“Oh hi Finn!”  His dad grinned, “Want’a join the next game?” 

“No I got homework.”  Finn lifted up the library books in his hand. 

“Homework?”  Gary said, a confused look spreading across his face, after having fought a losing battle for years about homework. 

“I promised Rae.”  He shrugged, his heart in his mouth, sorrow filling him up. 

“Well it’s important to try and keep your promises.”  Gary grinned.

“There’s some casserole in the fridge.”  Janice offered, but Finn shook his head.

“No thanks, Linda fed me.”  He tried to smile, but sentences from the letter kept creeping into his mind.  “I’m just gonna go.’  Finn started to head to his bedroom.

“Are you alright?”  Gary asked, concerned.

“Yeah I’m fine.”

“And you and Rae are alright?” 

“Yeah, we’re solid.”  He smiled more genuinely.  “I’m just real tired.  Overdid it this weekend and then the first day of college… did me head in.”  His eyes fell to the floor.  “I gonna sneak back to Rae’s tonight though, ok?”

“Don’t get caught.”  Gary said perfunctorily.  “Just get some sleep?”  He added with real worry. 

“I will.  But I sleep best next to her so…” he shrugged.

“Well don’t forget she can stay here.”  Gary offered.  Finn nodded and went up to his room.  He looked at his bed, remembering lying in the foetal position weeping and Rae holding him.  He looked at the singed hair on the back of his hand and saw a few bits of ash on his carpet. 

He regretted burning the letter now.  It was all he had of his mother. 

He picked up the few specks of ash and put them in a dry empty glass he’d been using for water.  He put the glass on his shelf and stared at it.

After a while he wiped the tears from his face and opened up one of his books.  He had no intention of breaking his promise to Rae.

At least he knew that he had his emotions under control better than he ever had.  Therapy and allowing himself to weep had allowed him a kind of freedom from their tyranny.  He felt them, more strongly than ever, but he could somehow bear them a little better, and he had no intention of ever repressing them again.  That’s what was really freeing, knowing that he could feel what he felt around Rae, and she still liked him.  That’s how he could bear the pain of his mother’s letter and still breathe; because he knew she’d still hold him no matter what.  He looked back up at the glass and thought about the pictures of his mother.  He smiled sadly and turned back to his homework, determined to have finished the essay outline before he went back to Rae’s place. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Sullen Girl’ by Fiona Apple _

 

_Studying utopian and dystopian novels is hard._

_Rae seems to do it so easily._

_She reads ‘1984’ as if it’s the track listing on an Oasis album._

_She even gets ‘the handmaid’s tale’ and she managed to finish ‘utopia’.  I can’t even get through the first few pages of that book._

_Why did I do advanced English?_

_I’m crap at English._

_I’m crap at anything like that really._

Chloe looked over the list of essay questions morosely. 

“Which one will you do Rae?”

“Probably ‘1984’ it’s the best of them.”

Chloe looked through questions.

“Did you read ‘Republic’ Rae?”  She asked as they walked out of the room. 

“Not yet.”

“And you did ‘1984’ in year 10 didn’t you?”

“Yeah, so technically I’m cheating a little.  But it’s not really cheating cos it’s a different question.” 

“Yeah.”  Chloe sucked her bottom lip and tried to choose which novel she’d focus on.  None of them looked like something she could actually do. 

“I’ll help you.”  Rae said with an understanding smile and Chloe looked up.

“Thanks.”  She smiled and felt less terrified by the assignments. 

Finn was waiting at the door, having memorised Rae’s timetable already. 

“How was science?”  Rae asked him.  He shrugged.

“Easy.”  Finn put his hand on her waist and pulled her into a kiss

_When they kiss like that I have to look away._

_My heart aches for Finn._

_I know I should be happy for Rae.  For Finn too._

_I want them to be happy._

_I need for them to be happy.  I need for them to make it._

_But I can’t stop loving Finn.  No matter how hard I try._

_I try not to think about it, like he said.  And I know he has no feelings for me like that._

_And I’m so glad he loves Rae so much, she deserves to be happy._

_I just feel so broken inside._

_No Chloe; things get broken, you are not a thing._

They started to head towards the exit, Tuesday was finally over, and they were free for the afternoon. 

Chop was meeting them at the Chippy and they were headed that way now. 

Chloe had been nervous all day.  After what Elsa said, she had been thinking about telling the gang what happened to her.  She kept Rae’s therapist’s number in her purse.  She kept thinking she’d call him.  But then, she knew that if she couldn’t tell her friends there’s no way she’d be able to tell a complete stranger. 

Izzy linked her arms through Rae and Chloe’s arms and they walked together slowly while Finn and Archie semi-wrestled each other and ran and raced and piggy backed all around them. 

Chloe tutted and rolled her eyes at them.

“Boys.”  Izzy shook her head.

“I’m thinking I should drop out of advanced English.”  Chloe suddenly said.

“No.”  Rae sulked.

“You can come and be with me in normal English Chlo!”  Izzy said excitedly and Rae pouted.

“I’m just not smart enough Rae.”

“That’s not true. And I said I’d help you.”  Rae countered.

“But we’re doing Yeats next and I’m crap at poetry.”  Chloe pleaded for her to understand.

“Oh we’re doing Hopkins at the moment.  Lord he does bang on about god.”  Izzy laughed. 

“See; they do poetry in normal English too!”  Rae pleaded tragically.

“And we gotta do Hamlet.”

“Hamlet’s easy!”

“No Shakespeare for us this year.”  Izzy grinned as they walked into the Chippy.  Chop got up and grabbed Izzy by the waist and kissed her eagerly.

“Ugh.”  Archie said as he sat down, Chloe sat opposite him.  “We’re doomed to be the perennial third wheels Chlo.”  He muttered and Chloe smiled wanly.  Finn and Rae settled down next to each other and Izzy sat on Chop’s lap. 

“How was school?”  Chop was asking Izzy.  And Finn’s eyes were on Rae, asking her something about a library book. 

Chloe and Archie shared a glance.

“This is pathetic.  We need to get boyfriends Chlo.”  Archie grinned.

“I’m off boys.”  Chloe answered softly.  Archie shrugged.

“Get a girlfriend.” 

_I like Archie.  He never makes anything weird._

_If I say something weird that most people would ask questions about, he just makes it ok._

_Finn can never keep his eyes off Rae.  And now they’re together, he’s always touching her._

_And she looks radiant.  I’m glad she’s happy._

Izzy yawned and Chop waited patiently for her to stop before kissing her. 

“You taking those iron pills?”  Rae asked and Izzy nodded and Chop looked at her concerned.  Rae had forgotten that Chop didn’t know.

“Iron pills?”  He asked curiously.  Chloe could see Rae’s mind working overtime, and realised that she was missing out on some of the girl gossip.  She’d have to catch up. 

“Girls take them for their periods.”  Chloe offered and Rae turned a thankful face to her.  Chop scrunched up his face and changed the topic decidedly, telling them about his day at work.  Izzy gave Chloe a look that told her she’d tell her all about it later and Chloe nodded almost imperceptibly, which meant the boys didn’t notice, but the girls had made a date to get together and chat later. 

_When Rae told the gang about her stay at the mental institute, everyone came together and helped her._

_They’ll do that for me too._

_I hope._

_What if they think I deserved it?_

_They won’t._

_And even if they do, Rae’ll look after you._

_But not against Finn.  She’d take his side._

_But Finn’s not like that.  Look at the way he smashed that guy who tried it on with Rae._

_He understands._

_I wish I had someone like Finn that’d protect me._

_I do though.  Finn picked me up and took me out of the pub in Sutherland, even though he’s not my guy._

_They’ll protect me._

_Just tell them._

_Do it._

“Guys.”  She said softly.  Archie and Finn had been debating music, Rae shaking her head at their misguided ramblings.  Chop and Izzy were making plans for tonight.  Even so, they all turned their eyes to her.  She looked around the Chippy and saw the tomato sauce bottle.  She got up and grabbed it, everyone watching her, and handed it to Rae before sitting down.

“Um…”  Her voice was so small and scared. 

_What if they judge me?_

_What if they think I’m a slut?_

She turned her eyes to Rae for help, but Rae was looking at the tomato sauce bottle.  But then Chloe saw understanding dawn on Rae’s face and she turned to Chloe.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”  She asked, almost silently.  She took Chloe’s hand.  “Whatever you choose, I’m right here.”

Finn noticed the change in Rae, the way she was leaning away from him and towards Chloe, and realised where this was going too.

“What’s up chlo?”  Chop asked jovially.  Finn turned his face to him and shook his head seriously.  Chop’s mouth opened in shock as he realised what was about to happen.

All eyes turned to Chloe, supportive, serious looks on their faces. 

_Don’t cry Chloe, you haven’t even said anything yet._

_Just take a deep breath._

_And… and self sooth like Rae said._

She closed her eyes and took a moment to calm herself. 

“Near the end of school term.”  She said softly her eyes still closed, “I had a boyfriend… of sorts.  Um… Ian.”  She took a deep breath.  “He weren’t very nice to me.”  She said softly.

“So why didn’t you dump him?”  Chop asked with an almost wide-eyed innocence.  Chloe almost scoffed.

“I guess… I felt I deserved him.”  Chop’s face screwed up in confusion.  Archie reached out and took Chloe’s other hand and she felt tears start to stab at her eyes. 

“I got really upset one day… I thought… I thought I had no one left.”  She sniffed and looked down at the table.  “So I went to stay with him.  Because… I were crap at everything else.  Except for that.”  Her eyes became unfocussed and her voice seemed distant. 

“He were pretty rough.  He just said he liked to fuck.”  A tear slid down her cheek.  “He would literally rip my clothes from me.  And thrown me around.  But I were used to him, so I guess…”  She shrugged, “I guess it were alright.”  Chop went to speak but Izzy put a gentle hand over his mouth and he closed it with a concerned frown. 

“A few days after getting there… one of his friends, um.”  Her face started to crinkle, tears flowed and she took a shuddering breath.  “His name was Ben…”  She took her hand out of Archie’s and put it to her face.  Izzy grabbed a few paper serviettes and handed them to Chloe. 

“Thanks.”  She tried to calm herself.  Everyone waited in silence as she blinked back her tears and sucked her bottom lip. 

“So Ben was saying that he hadn’t been laid for a while.  That he needed a wank.”  She swallowed hard, “and all the guys were laughing.”  Tears started to leak from her eyes again and she sobbed.  Rae leaned forward and rubbed her back and gently soothed her. 

“So Ian…”  She sucked her bottom lip for a long time, “he grabs me… and he… he throws me to Ben.”  She swallowed hard, “and he says ‘use her to wank, I always do.’ And he laughed.”  Her breath was shaking in and out of her mouth, her voice cracking with painful memories, “and I told him not to touch me.  But he… he grabbed my…” her hand went up to her shirt and pulled it tight around her throat.  “I asked Ian to make him stop.  And he said ‘it’s just messing around, we’re adults.  It don’t mean nothing’ and he told Ben that he could use me however he wanted.” 

“Oh my god.”  Izzy barely breathed the words. 

“He… dragged me to the bedroom and I told him no… but… he did it anyway… Even when I screamed at him… he just covered my mouth.”  She looked down at the table, “he said it were alright for him to do it cos Ian had said so.  He told me I liked it really.” 

“Why would he do it if you said no?  I don’t understand.”  Chop shook his head.

“Some guys are like that.”  Finn answered protectively, wanting Chloe to feel no judgement. 

“But why are they like that?”  Chop was so confused and scared for Izzy.

“Alright guys, just shut up.”  Izzy hissed at them.

Chloe smiled sadly at them.

“After that.  Ian let his friends do whatever they wanted to me.  And I had no say in it.  Until Rae came and saved me.”  She turned her eyes to Rae.  “Thank you.”  She whispered, tears streaming down her face.  Rae smiled supportively.

She turned back to everyone else. 

“I don’t really want to go into details.  But you have the tomato sauce bottle, if you have any questions.”  She took a deep breath. 

A long silence followed while everyone stared at the table.  Except Rae, who stroked Chloe’s back and told her, very quietly how brave she was, how wonderful she was, how she didn’t deserve this, how it wasn’t her fault. 

_I love Rae so much._

_Sometimes I wish I were one of those lesbians, so I could love her even more.  But even then. She’d just be with Finn._

_When I look at her face, I can believe that I can get through this.  Because I know what she’s gotten through.  And I know she’ll help me._

Eventually Chop took the tomato sauce bottle from Rae and stood up.  He walked over to Chloe.  He knelt down in front of her.

“Can I touch you?”  He asked softly.  Chloe felt tears in her eyes and smiled.

“Alright Chop?”  She asked, a little confused.  He held his arms out, as if to hug her.

“S’alright?”  He asked and she nodded.  He enveloped her into a huge hug and she started to cry in earnest.  Archie joined in, hugging her over the top of Chop’s arms.  Rae still held her hand and Izzy and Finn moved closer, shielding her from prying eyes.  After a while Archie and Chop stopped hugging her.  Chop looked her in the eye.

“That fucker deserves to die.  You’re a top bird Chloe, you deserve better.”  She nodded and Izzy slipped in to give her a hug.  Finn joined in with this one.

“I love you Chloe.”  Izzy whispered to her, “Anything you need ok?”

“Ok.”  Chloe answered, overwhelmed. 

Chloe turned to Rae and sank into another hug, feeling the lightest she had in weeks.  Eventually they all sat down, Chop still with the tomato sauce bottle. 

“So what do you need?”  He asked.

“I don’t know.”  Chloe answered sadly.  “I wish I knew what would make this…” She shook her head.  “Make it go away.”  She turned her tear soaked face to the floor and sighed deeply, “but I don’t think it’ll ever go away.”  She said softly, “I just feel so broken.  I always have. But this is…”  She shrugged.  Finn reached out for the tomato sauce bottle and Chop handed it to him.

“Have you tried talking to someone… like a proper person?”  He asked softly, “I can give the number of a therapist.  He’s right proper.”

“You seeing a therapist Finn?’  She asked with a faint smile.

“Yes.”  He answered unashamed.  “It helps.”  Archie turned his eyes, concerned, to Finn. 

“But you’re so normal.”  She answered.  He shrugged.

“Everyone need help sometimes.”  Rae answered for him and he smiled at her, taking her hand.  Chloe was just so thankful that he was seeing someone.  It made her feel like less of a freak.  She turned her eyes back to Rae.

“I guess I’ll call your therapist then?”  She asked permission.  Rae nodded as Archie took the tomato sauce bottle from Finn.

“Do your parents know?”

“No.”  Chloe answered with a bitter smile.  “I were gonna tell them, but my dad thinks I’m a massive slut for being there in the first place.  And mum hasn’t said anything, but she looks at me different.”  She lowered her eyes and fidgeted with the paper serviette, “I don’t really feel like telling them now.”  She took a deep breath.  “You guys don’t think I’m a slut do you?”

“You don’t have the tomato sauce bottle.”  Archie said seriously and she looked up at him to see a smiling supportive face, “so you don’t get to ask such a ridiculous question.”  She looked at all of them and saw the same look on their faces, except for Chop, who along with the support and care, still looked confused. 

“Why you confused Chop?”  She asked him.

“I just don’t get why you’d do it if she said no.  Where’s the fun in that?”  He looked at Izzy, “the best bit of sex is that she wants to do it with you.”  He shook his head, “those guys aren’t right in the head Chloe.”  He said strongly, “and no you’re not a slut.  You didn’t deserve it… none of that rubbish.  Those guys were… fucked in the head.”  He finished, still confused as to why they’d do it, but showing no doubt that it had happened.  “And I’ll smash ‘em for you if I see ‘em.”  He finished with a happy smile.

“Same.”  Finn agreed.  Archie shrugged.

“I’m not much of a fighter, but...” He shrugged to indicate he’d be belting them too. 

“That’s alright Archie, I’ll smash ‘em for you!”  Izzy grinned. 

“You?”  Chloe laughed.

“Yeah!”  Chloe laughed at her enthusiasm, at the very idea of tiny Izzy smashing anyone, let alone those guys. 

“Oi don’t laugh!”  Chop answered seriously, “She’s deadly!” 

 

 

Chloe was smiling as she walked home, a folder of school notes pressed to her chest.  She kept thinking of how lovely and supportive they were.  They all offered to walk her home, but she had needed some time to herself. 

She had decided that she would call Rae’s therapist tomorrow morning; she felt like she could get through anything with the support of her friends, even therapy. 

She barely noticed a car slowing down behind her, following her, as she thought about how her friends had reacted.  How loved she felt.  This was the best she had felt in months. 

_Rae were right; it were better to get this stuff out in the open._

“Hey slut!” 

Chloe felt her heart jump into her mouth at the sound of that voice.  She nearly stopped walking, but instead made herself speed up.  She got to the corner and stopped to check for cars.  They pulled up beside her.

“Where’re you going slag?”  Laughter, “I told you I’d come for you.”

Chloe kept her eyes forward, she tried to look indifferent, unafraid as she crossed the road. 

Ian gunned the car around the corner to pull up in front of her, almost hitting her.  She cried out in fear and they laughed.  She tried to keep her eyes away from the car, but she found them turning to see Ian, Saul, Ben and Tim in the car. 

She felt the tears on her cheeks and refused to acknowledge Ian and his mates.  She turned her head away and slowly started to walk around the car. 

Ian shot the car forward stopping her.  Chloe looked around the street for help. 

Quiet houses, lit internally by television screens, quiet streets, the late dusk air lazily whipping around her face, practically freezing her tears to her skin. 

“Fuck off.”  She said softly as she turned around to head back to the walkway. 

“Ah that’s not gonna happen bitch.  And you know it.”  His voice had a tinge of menace to it that made Chloe’s hairs prick up on the back of her neck.

_Oh fuck…_

_I’m in trouble…_

_And I’m alone._

The realisation hit her hard.  It didn’t matter what her friends were like, or whether she could go to therapy. 

She was alone.

She’d always be alone. 

And he’d keep coming for her.

“I need to wank again.”  Ben laughed.  “And Saul hasn’t had a ride yet!” 

“Yeah but he’s still thinking about that fat bitch friend of yours.”  Ian added.

“I do like a frigid cow.”  Saul laughed, “cunts like that are more fun to play with.  Plus you know, I’m like fucking mother Theresa – I like giving to charity.  She still a frigid cunt?” 

“She got a lad now, much better looking than any of you twats.”  Chloe defended Rae vehemently, trying not to look at the car.

“D’you hear that bullshit!”  Ian laughed, Saul shook his head, while Tim and Ben laughed.  Chloe tried to think of which way to go, to get back to where there might be people.  She walked back the way she had come, not making a sound, clutching her folder to her chest like a shield, terrified of the fading light.  She heard the car behind her and looked over her shoulder at them as she turned the corner, going up a road she didn’t know that well, hoping to find someone up there. 

She banged into a person and nearly fell backwards, but he grabbed her arms.

“Steady!”  He said amused. 

“Please help me!”  She cried at him and he looked up to see the car full of guys.

“Alright.”  He said softly and pulled Chloe to be behind him.  “Oi!  Why don’t you fuck off!”

“Are you mental?  There’s four of us!”  Ben laughed.

“Yeah well… I got a death wish.  Want’a see how many of you cunts I can take down afore you stop me?”  He rushed at the car and punched the bonnet hard, laughing manically. 

“Fuck!”  Ian spat and backed the car up.

“Fucking run me down!”  He screamed at the car.

Chloe watched on, terrified, her whole body shaking.  She saw him swearing aggressively at the car, saw the car back off and drive away, and she felt herself exhale raggedly, as if she’d been holding her breath the whole time. 

He walked back to her, laughing.

“You alright?”  He asked with a grin.  She nodded her head slowly.  He lit up a cigarette and noticed some blood on his hand. 

“Oh shit!”  He looked down the sleeve of his shirt.  “Fucking stitches are bleeding again.”  He mumbled. 

“Are you alright?”  Chloe found her voice. 

“Ah yeah!”  He grinned, “So where are you off to tonight?” 

“Home.”

“Want me to walk you there?” 

“If you don’t mind?”

“Ah well, I’ve got nowhere else to be.  Well, I mean I do but,” he shrugged, “But I don’t wanna be there so…” He ended with an almost terrifying grin and Chloe worried that her saviour was just as bad as her villains. 

“It’s alright,” he saw the look of fear on her face, “I won’t hurt you!”  He offered her the cigarette but she shook her head.  “Me name’s Liam.”  He proffered.

“I know who you are.”  She replied.

“Oh right?”

“You dated me best mate.”  She said warily.  Liam looked confused.  “Rae.”  She reminded him.

“Oh right!”  He said with a cheeky grin.  “I remember!  You’re Chloe.”  He finished and took a deep drag of his cigarette.  “Nice to finally meet you Chloe.”

 

 

 

 

_‘Ruby Soho’ by Rancid_

 

_Shit gets right weird sometimes._

_I don’t fucking understand it._

He heard a wolf-whistle up ahead and his eyebrows furrowed.

_I don’t know how girls do it._

_Guys are right cunts._

_Except for me lads.  They’re sound._

He turned the corner to see Izzy up ahead.  He sped up to catch up with her and heard the wolf whistle again. 

Chop turned his eyes towards the sound and saw two blokes looking at Izzy. 

Izzy kept walking as if she hadn’t heard it, but Chop felt rage building up in his guts.

“Oi!”  He yelled across the road at them.  Izzy turned, shocked.  “She not a fucking dog!  Don’t fucking whistle at her!”  He started to cross the road.

_I’m gonna beat the living shit out of-_

“CHOP!”  Izzy was calling frantically.  He turned to her, standing in the middle of the road.  She was shaking her head at him and he turned back to the boys who had been wolf whistling at her.  They were maybe 14 and they were terrified.  He looked back at Izzy and the boys took the chance to bolt.  He heard them scampering off as he turned to Izzy and walked back to her. 

“Hi baby girl.”  He kissed her lips and stroked some hair off her face.  She grinned at him.

“ ‘Morning!” 

_She looks tired.  But beautiful._

_Can’t get enough of her hair._

Chop still felt pissed off at those kids.  But he could never stay angry for too long when she grinned at him like that.  He ran his hands over her hips and to her lower back. 

She flinched and pulled away with a small sound of pain.

“What’s wrong?”  His face screwed up with concern.  But she smiled at him.

“I just hurt me back.”  She shook her head at his concern and took his hand.  “Let’s get going.” 

“Do guys whistle at you a lot?”  He asked as they fell in step together, heading for the Chippy.

“Those weren’t guys.  They was kids.”  She dismissed the incident. 

“Alright.”  He knew better than to argue with her when she gave him that tone of voice. 

“We got time for a quickie afore school?”  He asked excitedly.  “I mean, you’re up early.  And we’re not too far from your place!” 

“No, but we’ll have one after alright?”  She laughed. 

“Yeah!”  He grinned.

“Anyway, you were the one that said everyone had to come down to the Chippy early.”  She reminded him and he nodded enthusiastically. 

They walked into the Chippy to see Rae and Finn at the table, kissing, as always, his hand slowly travelling towards the hem of her skirt.  Chop rolled his eyes but Izzy smiled; always happy to see love. 

Archie returned form the counter with chips and drinks as Chloe walked in looking tired and drawn.  Archie spread the food out on the table and deliberately bumped into Finn breaking the lip locked kiss between him and Rae. 

“Alright?”  Finn bumped him back, Archie returned by punching his arm and Finn punched his thigh.  Chloe plopped down on the set next to Rae and Rae leaned in to put her head on her shoulder.  They hugged while Izzy and Archie chatted and Chop devoured chips.

“Alright you fuckers!”  Chop suddenly said and everyone turned to him.  “I got some news.”  He shoved some more chips in his mouth and took a big swig of coke, ending with a loud burp.

“You’re such a disgusting boy!”  Izzy hit his arm and he laughed. 

“Right.”  He said after he’d swallowed, “So it turns out, that me Uncle Richard, who I didn’t even really know, liked me quite a bit.” 

“Which one’s Richard?”  Izzy asked.

“Hibiscus fella.”  Chop answered.  “He died in hospital.”  He looked a little glum, but mostly unperturbed, “You know when we was up looking after his place.”

“Oh no!”  Izzy put her hands to her face.

“You alright Chop?”  Archie asked.

“I mean, it’s sad right?”  Chop answered, “But I didn’t really know him.”  He shrugged.  “Anyway, he left me some money in his will.”  Chop pulled a face, “I have no idea why!” 

“That hibiscus must’a been real important to him!”  Rae joked.  Chop grinned.

“They was talking about closing down the mechanic where I work when Joe retires.  So I’ve decided to buy it.  And maybe an apartment too, if there’s enough.” 

“Oh my god!”  Izzy kissed him and he wrapped his arms around her, careful to avoid her sore lower back. 

“Gonna have to have a party!”  Finn quipped.

“Yeah!”  Chop agreed.  “But maybe just us six yeah?”

“Oh no way!  I’m inviting the whole fucking town!”  Rae piped up loudly.

“A small party would be better!”

“Not after your sexy party shite at mine!”  Rae countered. 

“Oh come on Raemundo – you loved it!”  He protested, and then realised; “And that’s when Finley realised you was the one!  If it weren’t for me, you two wouldn’t be together.”  He nodded smugly. 

“Oh aye?”  Finn asked sceptically.

“Aye!”  Chop mocked him. 

Rae noticed Izzy rubbing her lower back slightly and stood up.

“Loo break.”  She said as she grabbed Izzy’s hand and nodded for Chloe to join them.  “We’re gonna plan your party Chop!”  She shot at him as she left. 

Chop watched Izzy go.  And Finn watched Rae go.

Archie watched his two best mates and shook his head.

“Finn.”  Chop turned to Finn as soon as the door to the girls’ bathroom closed, “I think it should only be the 6 of us, to protect Chloe.” 

“Alright.”  Finn understood, “I’ll take care of Rae’s plans for your party.”  He grinned.

“Also, I were thinking…”  Chop screwed up his face in concentration, “all this shite that happens to the girls right?  That’s guys’ fault.”  Finn nodded and Archie looked at the table thoughtfully.  “So us guys can fix it right?”  He looked excited.

“Fix it how?”  Archie asked morosely.

“Well Finn and I met at the boxing joint.”  Chop answered, “We both know how to curl a fucker up.”

Finn nodded, understanding where Chop was going with this.

“I reckon we teach the girls how to kill any bastard that touches ‘em.”  Chop nodded sagely, “us included.”

“Make ‘em better fighters than you two?”  Archie mused.  “Sounds good.”

“Yeah, but Rae don’t like hitting people.”  Finn thought back to their boxing session, “she good at it but.”  He smiled reminiscing. 

“Hey look at that fucking smile!”  Chop laughed, “turned you on did it?”

“I like how strong she is.”  He answered with a devious grin.

“OOH!”  Chop and Archie chorused, laughing.

“Likes the rough stuff!”  Chop laughed and punched his arm.

“Oi leave off!”  He laughed. 

“I always knew our Rae Rae would be a fucking vixen!”  He chuckled and Finn shook his head strangely pleased.  Archie rolled his eyes and ate some chips.

“Why do girls go to the bathroom together?”  Archie mused, changing the topic before Chop went too far and Finn got defensive.

“It’s fucking weird innit?”  Chop agreed, his eyes straying to the door. 

 

 

***

 

 

“You alright?”  Rae said as soon as they got to basins.  Izzy paused, looking at Chloe.  “Oh right, you’re not caught up yet.”

_I don’t want to make them worry.  It’s nothing really.  Just another test._

_That’s what me mum said anyway._

Izzy watched as Rae described in gory detail the bleeding gums incident and Chloe turned to her looking shocked and scared.

“Izzy?”  Chloe asked, worried.

“I’m fine!”  Izzy replied soothingly. 

“Did you get the blood tests back?”

“Yeah, I took me mum to the doctor, cos he called up and said he wanted to give me a check-up.”  She shrugged.  “He wanted to do another test.”  She lifted up the back of her shirt to reveal a small bandage.  “It weren’t nothing important guys, don’t worry!”  She grinned. 

“What sort of test are they doing back there?”  Chloe asked as her fingers gently touched the bandage.

“I think they said it were a biopsy?”  Izzy shrugged.  “I didn’t really listen.  Mum were there for that.”

“What’s a biopsy?”  Chloe said the word carefully, as if it weren’t in her native tongue.

“What the fuck were they doing a biopsy on Izzy?”  Rae said.

“Me pelvis.”

_I don’t want’a think about this._

_It hurt to get it done.  And the wound hurts._

_And I’m frightened._

_And I don’t want’a be._

_I want’a go and kiss Chop and enjoy his good news._

“The bone or… tissue?”  Rae asked, trying to remember the biology classes she’d done at her previous school. 

“It were bone.”

“Why would they take some of your bone?”  Chloe asked, obviously worried.

“I dunno.  It were just a test.  I’m probably just anaemic!”  Izzy grinned and she headed back out to the boys decisively.

Chloe and Rae exchanged a look.

“We should check out stuff on biopsies at the library.”  Rae said softly and Chloe nodded. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Evidence’ by Faith No More _

 

Finn knocked the door expectantly and looked down at the supplies he’d bought.  Other than topcoat paint, he had everything he’d need. 

She answered, on the phone, and motioned him to come in.  He noticed she was barefoot, wearing jeans and a lose fitting shirt. 

“Hang on.”  She said and put the phone against her chest.  She looked at his huge bag of supplies.  “I had no idea it’d take so much to fix a hole!”  Finn nodded and couldn’t stop himself from looking her up and down.

“You know Elsa, you should try to stop looking so good for like, 5 minutes, alright missy?”  He laughed.  She shook her head at him.

“Impossible!”  She smiled.  “And ditto.”  She conceded before putting the phone back up to her ear and walking away from him.  “No, Wednesdays are off, for the next…” She turned to him and he held up 2 fingers.  “2 weeks.”  She motioned for him to go through to the spare bedroom as she wandered through to her kitchen.  She opened up a personal planner and Finn could see that it was very full. 

“Ok, we’ll hook up in a couple of weeks time.”  She paused and smiled, “Yeah definitely bring Wanda and Scott.” Finn shook his head and headed in to the spare bedroom.

He pulled a face when he saw the hole.  He put his bag of supplies down and pulled the set of drawers out of the way.  He took his shirt off, a singlet underneath, and grabbed the newspaper he’d bought, layering it on the floor under the hole. 

“Do you want a drink?”  She called through to him.

“Tea?”  He called back.  And he heard her moving around in the kitchen. 

He took out his carpenters square and pencil, and started marking up a square around the hole.  She walked in, putting her hair in a ponytail. 

“Can I help?”

“No, this is my job.”  Finn answered seriously.  “But I’d like it if you kept me company?”  He grinned.

“Sure.”  The kettle started to whistle and she left the room.  She returned with 2 cups of tea and pulled up a chair to sit in, her legs crossed like a school girl. 

“How’s college treating you?” 

“So far so good.”  He said with a grim smile.  “Rae made me promise to do me homework.”  He said with a distasteful look on his face and Elsa laughed. 

“I like Rae more and more every day.”  She laughed and Finn nodded his head. 

“Me too.”  He picked up his plasterboard saw, and starting from the hole he sawed outwards to the pencil lines he had drawn.

“So we make the hole bigger to fix it?”

“Pretty much.”  Finn grinned at her discomfort.  “You know…” He turned to her, “I decided that I could handle Rae’s world.”  He said with a happy smile.

“Of course you did!”

“You knew what I’d choose, didn’t you?”  Finn fidgeted with the saw handle.

“You can never know for sure what someone else will do.  But I had a good idea.”

“If you knew what I’d do, why’d you ask me to think on it?

“Because _you_ had to know Finn.”  She said with an enigmatic smile.  “You had to go into this relationship with Rae, willingly, with your eyes wide open, and under no illusion of what you were getting yourself into.”  She reached into the drawers Finn had moved and pulled out a packet of cigarettes.  She lit one and looked at Finn thoughtfully.

“Because even though you love her, if you hadn’t make the conscious decision to be with her – knowing everything that being with her entailed, you’d have ended up resenting her, resenting her body image issues, her mental health…”  She saw Finn wanting to protest but she shook her head, “this is something I understand very intimately, you understand?”  He stopped and looked down at the floor.  “I wanted to save Rae that pain.”  She shrugged, “so I made sure you were sound.”

“It didn’t worry you how much it would fuck me up to be asked to think about this shit?”  Finn asked pointedly. 

“Not one bit.  If you couldn’t even handle thinking about it, you certainly couldn’t handle living it.  And you wouldn’t have deserved her.”  Finn acknowledged what she had said as accurate with a nod of his head. 

“It’s scary how close I came to fucking the whole thing up.  How close I came to not deserving her.”  He turned back to the hole and carefully slotted the blade back in to continue sawing along his drawn lines. 

“You know, I want’a apologise again for the other night Elsa.  I was pretty rough with you and well outta line.”

“Well out of line.”  She agreed softly, “but not that rough.”

“Maybe not for you.”  She saw his eyes fill with guilt, shame, self-hate.  “I just keep thinking that if someone went to Rae’s house and did that to her…”  He sucked his bottom lip and shook his head.  He turned his eyes to her, “it were wrong what I did.  It were so wrong.”  He took a deep breath.  “I’m real sorry Elsa.  Did I hurt you?”

“No.”  She answered honestly.  “Although it did upset me.”  Finn turned his eyes to her, guilt brimming over in them, “Don’t panic Finn.  It upset me because I got very close to breaking my own code of ethics and morals.  The closest I’ve ever been.”  He lowered his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t beat yourself up.  That’s on me, not you.  And I still wasn’t that close to breaking them!”  She laughed, “There was no chance of anything happening.  I just don’t like my body responding to a no-go person…” She pulled a face, “you know what I mean?”  Finn nodded

“Yeah.” he pulled the sawn out bit of wall and put it in his bag.  “I’ll use it to colour match the paint.”  He explained in response to Elsa’s curious face.  And motioned for her to keep talking so she did. 

“My brain never let go of my own code for a moment.  So… you were never at risk.  It was just my traitor body.”  She added melodramatically and Finn chuckled.

“I understand that.”  He looked at her meaningfully for a moment and then lowered his eyes.  “I were very wrong to do what I did.”  He took out some sandpaper and attacked the edges of the new hole. 

“You gotta stop beating yourself up!”  She said, noticing his hunched shoulders.  He shook his head.

“No, I should beat myself up more.”  He mumbled. 

“You feel like you forced me a little?”  Elsa understood.  He nodded with loathing.  Elsa thought to the way Chloe had been acting since she got back at school; she recognised those actions.  Knew that she and Finn were friends. 

“You been learning about rape lately?”  She asked softly and watched him nod his head slowly. 

“I’m sorry.”  He almost whispered.

“Finn.  You’re not as bad as you think you were.”  He shook his head in response, “ok, think of it this way…”  She clicked her fingers to get him to look at her and he did, his eyes filled with shame, “you were very forceful with me, and you were quite emotional and really horny.  But you stopped when I told you to.”  She added with a forceful voice, and she noticed his shoulders straighten slightly in response to her words, “Most men would not have.”  She lit another cigarette from the end of her last one.  “So that makes you different.”

“Most?”  His face was filled with concern.

“In my personal experience Finn.  Most don’t.”  Finn bit the inside of his mouth, understanding what she was saying. 

“Have you talked to Chloe?”  He asked softly.

“I have.”  She said delicately. 

“Is she gonna be ok?  Like you?”  Elsa smiled at the vulnerable young man, struggling with different messages about masculinity, with lust and love and friendship, with growing up, with responsibility, with everything it was to be a young man. 

“Hopefully.”  Elsa shrugged.  “Time will tell.”

“I am sorry Elsa.”  He turned to her.

“I know.”

“I won’t ever do something like that again.”

“I know.”  Elsa said meaningfully.  “You are permanently changed Finn Nelson.”  She smiled encouragingly at him.  “There’s no going back now.  The last bit of stupid little boy inside of you has died in this house.  It wasn’t a nice death but it turned out ok in the end.”  He scoffed, but still smiled a little as he turned back to his sanding. 

“Why did you come here that night?”  Her curiosity getting the better of her.  “I mean, I know why you were after sex; I understand emotional numbing.  But why did you choose here; me?”

“Cos I’m attracted to you.”  Finn shrugged, “and there’s this air around you, like you’re bang up for it.”  Finn watched her lower her eyes in thought and focussed on the sanding. 

“So I’ve been told.”  She said calmly.  “I don’t always try to give off that air, you know.  At school I try very hard not to.”  She sighed sadly.  “Oh well, if that’s the side effect of not hating myself, then fine!”  She laughed.  Finn smiled fondly.

“You know, I still find you attractive.”  He focussed very hard on the sanding, “it worries me.” 

“Why?” 

“Really?”  Finn scoffed. 

“Yeah!” 

“Alright, well cos… I love Rae.  That’s why.”

“Exactly.”  She answered meaningfully and drew on her cigarette.  “No one goes through life only finding one person attractive Finn!”

“I know that.  But… since I started liking Rae… I haven’t really looked at other girls.” 

“You’re so monogamous.”  Elsa shook her head and chuckled.  “Look, do you ever feel like you need to do something about it?  Like right now, are you at risk of trying it on with me?”

“No.”  Finn shook his head. 

“Right, so you have no desire for me?”  Finn stopped sanding, his eyes glazing over as he really thought about what she’d said.

“Not really no.”  He said surprised.  “Odd.”  He turned to her.  “Like I can look at you, and see that you are so beautiful, and be real attracted to you but…” he shook his head, “nothing.”  He made a noise that indicated how exciting that was and Elsa laughed at his mood. 

“You need to think things through before you start worrying Finn.”  She noted.

“Aye.”  He agreed with a wry grin.

“This whole thing… It’s like you’re sitting in the front garden of your relationship house Finn, and you’re checking out what your neighbours have done with their houses.  And you see a nice little cottage up the street and you think, ‘now that is a nice cottage’ but you’d still prefer your own home… because it’s home.  You got no desire to get into that little cottage; you just admire it.  But you admire your own home the most.”

“That house metaphor of yours is right good.”  He smiled as he tossed the used sandpaper in the bag and took out a measuring tape and a piece of plasterboard. 

“You know the word metaphor now?”

“Ah that’s Rae’s doing.”  He shrugged with a cheeky grin and started measuring the hole carefully.  “You got a bucket and some hot water?”  He asked.

“Yeah, I’ll get it.”  She jumped up and went into the laundry.  Finn felt through the house metaphor in his head, including the nice little cottage up the street and nodded to himself.  That was exactly it.  He admired Elsa, could see what an incredible woman she was, but his home was Rae.  Rae was where he wanted to be.  And Rae was infinitely more incredible to him.  He felt so much better about almost everything.  He drew up the measurements on the piece of plasterboard he had bought with him.  He drew a 2 cm border around the measurements and used his plasterboard saw to cut along the bigger border. 

Elsa returned with the bucket of hot water and sat down again. 

“Ta muchly.”  He said without looking up as he sawed carefully. 

“Want a smoke?”

“Yeah.”  He stopped and took one.  “Why’d you let me in that night?”  He asked as he went back to sawing.

“You looked hell bent on self-annihilation.”  Elsa responded, “I recognised it, because I’ve been there.”  Finn looked up at her, surprised again.  “I figured you’d do the least amount of damage at my house.”  She shrugged, “was I wrong?”

“I dunno.”  He furrowed his eyebrows and kept sawing.

“Well, where would you have gone if I had turned you away?”

Finn already knew the answer to that.  It had been swimming guiltily in the back of his mind since that night.  He was ashamed of this answer.

“Chloe’s.”  He said softly.

“Rae’s best friend?”  Finn nodded.  “Would she have slept with you?” 

“Yeah.  She fancies me.”  Finn said with real self-loathing, “I knew I were in there if I wanted to be.”

“But you chose here?”

“Better prize.”  He said miserably.  And Elsa shook her head.

“No Finn.”  Elsa shook her head, “I believe that inside everyone there is a constant struggle between the parts of us that for some reason seek self-destruction, and those very sane parts of us that seek self-preservation.  I think your self-preservation kicked in when you chose here instead of Chloe’s.”

“It would have fucked up everything if I’d gone to Chloe’s.”  Finn acknowledged.

“Beyond repair, I would think.”

“Oh aye.”  Finn answered gravely.  “Absolutely.”  He held up his sawn out piece of plasterboard.  “she’d’ve never forgiven me.”  He knew it. 

“Yeah, fair enough too.”  Elsa agreed.  Finn nodded his head in agreement.  He put the piece of plasterboard down and grabbed some detergent and a rag from his bag of supplies, he poured some in the water and wiped area around the hole thoroughly. 

“What a fucking mess that would’ve been.”  Elsa considered as she smoked and watched Finn washing her wall.

“This thing that happened between us is a big enough of a mess for me!”  Finn said, his cigarette clamped between his teeth as he worked. 

“Nothing happened between us Finn.”

“We kissed!”  He answered, “Well I kissed you.  And I grabbed your…”  He pointed, embarrassed at her breasts. 

“Oh I forgot that monogamous people are caught up on kissing.”  She joked with a straight face and he narrowed his eyes at her. 

“I don’t know how to tell Rae.”  He said, fear of losing her thumping in his head and chest.  He turned back to his cut out plasterboard and took out a box cutter.  Very carefully he traced along the lines that measured the actual size of the hole.  He was careful not to punch through to the paper on the front of the plasterboard, just removing the 2cm border he’d created, so there was a flap of paper overhanging the edges of the block of plasterboard.  He concentrated, and carefully, skilfully made his cuts.  Elsa waited for him to finish. 

“What makes you think you should tell her?”  She asked as soon as he finished.

“Of course I should!”  He answered vehemently but Elsa just raised her eyebrows at him. 

“Why?”

“Cos she should know!”

“Really?”  She asked and shook her head, “You weren’t dating at that moment, so it wasn’t cheating…”

“I know but…”

“You feel like shit right?  Guilty?”

“Of course I do!”

“Right…”  Elsa took a deep breath and focussed her eyes on him penetratingly.  “What purpose could it possibly serve to tell Rae?  Other than making you feel better?”  She asked and Finn gave her an angry glare.  “All it will do, is take all your guilt, all your emotions about what you did, and transfer them to Rae.”  Finn felt his insides churn, “Sure you’ll feel better.  You’ll feel lighter; the burden’s gone.  But you know where it’ll go right?  Straight to her.  She’ll have to carry it now.”

Finn sat down on the bed heavily.

“I hadn’t even thought about it like that.”  He said painfully.  He looked up at her, “You’re right Elsa, this guilt is for me to carry, not her.”

“Guilt is such a shit emotion Finn.”  Elsa said soothingly. 

“Well I shouldn’t’a done what I did.”  He answered with not a hint of self-pity.  “If I hadn’t o’ made the mistake-”

“Oh stop it!”  She said with disgust.  “I hate the way we seem to be teaching people that you can’t make mistakes.  If you’re going to feel guilty for fucking up this time Finn, you might as well feel guilty for the first time you ever fell on your arse trying to learn how to walk.”  She said passionately, “People make mistakes; it’s part of how we learn and grow.  What matters isn’t that you made the mistake.  It’s how you handle it that counts.”  She watched all the emotion crossing Finn’s face as he considered this, “And you have done a fine job of handling your mistakes.  You’ve been quite the proper young man.”  She finished. 

“Thanks Elsa.  You’re a good mate.”

“I’m your fucking teacher, don’t forget it.”

“And you’re me mate.  No arguments!”  He answered her before she had chance to disagree.  He got up and put the cut bit of plasterboard in the hole; it fit perfectly, the flaps he had created sticking out over the edges of the hole.  He grabbed some drywall compound from the bag and smeared it over the edges smoothly, then he turned to her.

“Right, don’t touch it while it dries.  I’ll come sand it next week, and paint an undercoat.  Then the week after that the topcoat.”

“Thanks.”  She stood up, and without warning Finn drew her into a hug.  She returned it gently. 

“Thanks for giving me a chance to make it right.”  He said softly and let her go, “Where can I put the undercoat and roller?’  He asked without looking up. 

“Laundry.”  She answered with a fond smile. 

Finn stored the things he needed for next week, and bagged the rest of his things.  He cleaned up, put the drawers back and washed his hands and face in her bathroom. 

He got to the door as a knock sounded.  He opened the door, Elsa coming up behind him. 

On the doorstep stood a tall, fit man with dark hair and striking blue eyes.  He broke out into a smile as he looked at Finn.

“You’re early!”  Elsa said.

“Couldn’t wait.”  He smiled at her and turned back to Finn, taking his face in his one hand, his thumb running along Finn’s lips.  “He’s pretty!”  He smiled.  “Gonna play?”  He asked Finn excitedly. 

“Um…”  Finn answered uncomfortably.

“He’s monogamous!”  Elsa answered and took her visitor’s hand from Finn’s face.

“Oh.”  He said in disgust, “oh.”  He repeated in sympathy for Finn, as if he’d been diagnosed with a terminal illness.  “What’s he doing here then?”

“Fixing the wall.” 

“Oh ok!”  The man said more comfortably.  “Pity.”  He turned and looked at him.

“I’ll see you next week Finn.”  Elsa hurried him out the door as the handsome man started to wrap his arms around her waist; intense sexual energy sparking between him and Elsa as she closed the door on Finn.  He heard a thud against the door and chuckled to himself.  He took a deep breath, feeling better, feeling as if were on the right track, and shoved his bag under the seat in his bike. 

He was keen to see Rae, so instead of heading home to dump his things and clean up, he headed straight for her place. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Cream’ by Prince _

 

Archie moaned and looked at the alarm clock.

_Why the fuck did I decide 5am?_

_Oh that’s right._

_Boxing._

He sat up, starting to grin, and got ready for the gym.

Chop’s talk at the chippy yesterday had made him worry that he wouldn’t stack up when they were trying to teach the girls to box.  And he didn’t want to end up being taught alongside the girls. 

Besides, he’d been thinking of taking up boxing since that incident with Tom.  He smiled deliriously.  Well the incident was actually with Simmy, but Tom was the rescuer. 

_Sexy, Greek-god Tom._

_Here I come!_

Archie decided to jog to the boxing joint. 

When he finally got there, a light sheen of sweat on his face, he walked in timidly, looking around for Tom.  Archie wished that the fitness centre where he worked offered boxing classes and that Tom was an instructor there.  That would have been much easier than navigating this centre. 

“Hi!”  A good looking guy behind the counter greeted him.  Archie smiled timidly.

“I wanted to take some boxing lessons?”

“Oh right.”  The guy smiled and looked down at his folders.  “We’ve got two instructors that work this early, Rhys and Tom.” 

“Oh yeah.  Um… Tom’s the guy that suggested I come down.” 

“Well you’re lucky, Tom’ll be here in about 15 minutes I reckon.”  He grinned.  “I’ll sign you up then?”

“Yes please.”  Archie grinned in reply. 

“Here’s a schedule of our fees.”  He said as he handed Archie a piece of paper, Archie scanned them and saw he could afford it fine. 

A few minutes later, Archie was walking into the gym area.  There were boxers everywhere.  Guys sparring in a ring, guys beating the crap out of punching bags, guys jumping skip rope, guys throwing medicine balls at each other.  The place was a testosterone fuelled fantasy land. 

“How the fuck did Finn not end up gay?”  Archie mumbled to himself as he looked around at all the fit guys.  He made a whimpering groan as his eyes fixed on a particularly good looking guy sparring with a less good looking guy in the ring.  He watched them intently, the way their bodies moved; the grace and agility, but also the brute power. 

He almost jumped out of his skin when a hand touched his shoulder.

“Oh fuck!”  He laughed when he saw Tom’s smiling face.

“Archie, right?”  He smiled, his blue eyes seeming to penetrate Archie’s body, even though they just took in his face.

Archie nodded and gave a slightly high pitched noise of affirmation. 

“You finally showed up!”  He looked so pleased and Archie felt himself grinning like an idiot.  “Guy tells me you’re my new student?”

“Guy?”  Archie said softly, “the guy at the front counter is named Guy?”  Archie asked incredulously.

“I know!”  Tom laughed, “The only other worse names are Buddy and Dick.”  Archie laughed nervously. 

_I like the word dick coming out of his mouth._

_I’d prefer a dick going into his-_

_Ok Archie, you need to cool the tempo now._

“So how’s your general fitness?”  Tom asked as he guided him towards a corner in the gym.

“Not bad.  I jog every day.” 

“Weight training?”

“Not really.”  Archie said self-consciously as Tom took his jacket off, to reveal a muscled physique in a tank top. 

“That’s alright.”  Tom said with an encouraging smile, “we can work on that if you want.”

“That’d be nice.” 

“Right, so do you know how to throw a punch?”  Tom asked.

“No.”  Archie said nervously, he lowered his eyes and blushed. 

“Alright, let’s just start with a basic front punch.”  Tom smile winningly and Archie felt his heart leap into his mouth. 

_Oh god, he’s like looking at pornography._

_I wonder what he tastes like._

_Oh my god…_

Archie held his breath as Tom took his right hand in his two hands.

“Right handed?”  Archie nodded dumbly in response to Tom’s question. 

Tom’s fingers traced down the back of his hand to his first two knuckles. 

“Try to keep your first two knuckles in line with the bones in your forearm.”  Tom’s voice was like treacle and cream.  Archie looked up at him, open mouthed and nodded.  Tom ran his fingers from Archie’s two knuckles to his forearm, gently positioning Archie’s fist in the correct manner.

“It makes your fist stronger, you’re less likely to hurt yourself.”  He explained, flicking his eyes up from Archie’s hand to his face on the last word, a smile caressing his beautiful mouth. 

“Put these on.”  Tom handed him some gloves and he took the pads and held them up for him.  “Let’s just see how you go.” 

Archie put the gloves on and tried to keep his knuckles properly aligned.  He tried to take up the stance he’d noticed being used by a lot of guys in the room and noticed that this made Tom smile. 

He punched the pad.  And Tom scoffed.

“You can go harder than that.”

Archie punched again, this time with his left hand.

“Harder.”  Tom commanded.

Archie punched again.

“Don’t stop.”

Another punch.

“Faster!”

Another.

“HARDER!”

 

 

Archie walked out of the boxing joint exhausted, but with a weekly date for boxing with Tom, his home number, and the slight hint of a suggestion that maybe there would be a date not at the gym in the future.  He felt like he was floating down the road as he jogged home. 

_I’m in love._

_So this is what it feels like._

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Black Stick’ by The Cruel Sea _

 

By a very lucky coincidence, Thursday saw Rae and Finn sharing a free period just before lunch.  Rae sat at their favourite desk, reading ‘1984’ again. 

She didn’t notice Stacey Stringfellow crossing the grass towards her.  Rae didn’t know that unfortunately, Stacey also had a free period.  She sat down opposite Rae, prompting Rae to look up from her book. 

_Oh shit._

_Stacey bloody Stringfellow._

_Why the fucking fuck is she sitting here?_

“What?”  Rae asked as Stacey just stared at her.  Stacey shrugged and pulled a face.

“You know, I really can’t understand what he sees in you.”

“Alright.”  Rae lowered her eyes back to the book.”

“You’re so mingy.”  Stacey said in a sweet voice.

“Graduated from bitching about people behind their backs to doing it to their faces have you Stace?  Rae asked without looking up.

“You’re so fat.”  She ignored what Rae had said, “and so ugly.”

“Alright.”  Rae kept reading.

“I used to wonder why Chloe kept you around, and I figured it was to make herself feel better, you know, in comparison to you.  But now we all know that you’re both as fucked as each other.”

“That’s right.”  Rae turned the page, having not really taken any of it in, but not wanting to give Stacey any satisfaction.

“Do you hate it, that I got there first?  That when he touches you, he must be comparing your fatness, to my fitness.”  Her voice was syrupy sweet and Rae closed her book to look at her.

“You two didn’t fuck.”  Rae said confidently. 

“Yes we did.”

“Finn told me about what happened with your mum.”  Rae was unmoved.

“Finn’s lying to you.”  Stacey breathed to her.

“Right, and who I am gonna believe, you or him?  You; a real minger on the inside.  Or my lovely boyfriend who adores me.  Tough choice.”  Rae opened her book and continued reading. 

Stacey kept watching her in silence. 

“He always was good at feeding girls lines.  That’s how he conquered so many of us.”  She said with a smile. 

Rae looked up to retort but saw Finn crossing the grass behind Stacey, a concerned look on his face.

Stacey saw where Rae was looking and turned around.

“Oh hey Finn.”

“Oh hey, fuck off Stacey.”  He replied.  He straddled the seat next to Rae and scooted up as close to her as possible.  Rae turned to him and he kissed her.

“That’s so disgusting.”  Stacey said, “no one wants to see that.” 

“If you don’t want ta see it, fuck off.”  Finn said without looking at her.  He leaned in for a deeper kiss, his arm going around Rae’s waist. 

They kissed for some time, not caring or noticing whether Stacey had stayed or left. 

“If we bring the car or bike, we might have time to nip off home for a quickie on Thursdays.”  Finn’s hand started to travel up her thighs, under her skirt.  His fingers found her cunt and her groaned.

“You gotta stop wearing these fucking tights.”  He whispered to her.  “I want’a finger you right here, right now.”  Rae blushed and looked around to see if anyone was near.  Phil was walking over, and Finn’s fingers were crawling up her stomach, trying to find the top of her tights.  Eventually he did and he mercilessly pulled at them to get his hands under them and pushed back down to her cunt, making her spread her thighs slightly.  He kissed her neck while she tried not to make any sounds.  His fingers slid inside of her and she whimpered softly. 

“Phil’s coming over.”  Rae said softly to him.  But he just traced over her clitoris with his thumb, his fingers moving inside of her.  He kissed her mouth passionately and plunged his fingers inside of her as deeply as he could, feeling her breath catch in her throat. 

“Hi Rae.”  Phil said, “Finn.” 

“Oh hi Phil.”  Rae’s voice was quite high pitched and she cleared her throat and tried to bring it down as Finn moved his fingers inside of her; the table blocking Phil’s view of what was going on, Finn’s eyes not leaving Rae’s face. 

“How are you going?”  She said with a lower, but still slightly breathless voice. 

“I thought you might like this.”  He took a book out of his bag and handed it to her.  It was a battered copy of ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead’

“Ah I love this play.  It’s probably my favourite.”  She said and Finn moved his finger faster making her gasp, and she covered it by coughing. 

“Yeah I figured when you were talking about the odds being against you and the playwright putting their own voice in it and things like that.”  He looked down.

“Thank you.”  She said a little shortly, not wanting to speak because Finn was doing a particularly good job of rubbing her clitoris. 

“Right well… I’ll see you in performing arts tomorrow.  Bye Rae.  Finn.”

“See you Will.”  Finn said without looking at him. 

“Phillip.”

“Oh right.”  Finn kept his eyes on Rae’s face as pink spots started to form on her cheeks.  “See you round Phillip.”  The last ‘p’ popped out of his mouth again and Phillip knew he was being dismissed.  As he turned Finn brought his hand up to Rae’s mouth for her to bite into.  She waited until Phil was completely tuned around and bit the side of his hand to stop herself from groaning loudly as she came.  Finn smiled with lusty triumph as he heard the tiny slivers of whimpers escape her throat.  He kissed her lips as he withdrew his fingers.

“There’s still nothing better than making you come.”  He whispered to her and then licked his fingers, while she panted, and blushed. 

“I can’t believe you did that!”  She said with mock outrage.

“I can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner!”  He matched her outrage and ended it with a huge cheeky grin.  “You taste different.”  He looked down at his fingers but saw nothing remiss, so he shrugged. 

“Different how?” 

“I dunno.  Stronger.”  He kissed her lips and she tasted herself on his tongue.  “I don’t mind.”  He asserted, “But I do mind that we can’t fuck right now.”

“Me too.”  She slid her hand down towards his groin and he groaned appreciatively. 

“Hey guys.”  Archie sat down.  They hadn’t noticed him coming over.

“Aren’t you s’posed to be in music?”  Finn asked slightly frustrated as Rae’s hand backed off and travelled back down his thigh to his knee. 

“It’s lunch time.”

“When the fuck did that happen?”  Rae asked, “that free went by in no time.”

“Did you spend most of it making out?”  Archie asked unimpressed.  Rae shot him a narrowed eyed glare.  But didn’t reply as Izzy sat down with a huge grin.

“Look!”  Izzy put a bag up on the table. 

Chloe sat beside her as Izzy opened up her bag to reveal a beautiful deep green satin backed crepe material, and glorious hand woven lace in the same colour. 

“That’s beautiful.”  Rae sad as she touched the material.

“It’s for your dress.”  She bit her bottom lip, “What d’you think?”

“For me?”  Rae opened her mouth, delighted.  “It’s perfect!  I can’t believe it!”  She fingered the satin backed crepe, “It’s too much Iz!”

“No it’s not.”  Izzy took the lace out, “this cost a bucket but I had to have it for you.  I’ll get extra credit for working with something so tricky.”  She raised her eyebrows apprehensively. 

“Thank you so much!”

‘You haven’t even seen what I’m making you yet!”  She warned, “I hope you like it; I’m designing myself.” 

“I’ll love it!”

Finn pulled a sandwich out of his bag and handed it to Rae as she and Izzy talked; she took it without looking at it.  He dug back into his bag and pulled another sandwich out for himself and started eating, while Rae just held her sandwich, too busy admiring the material.  He eyed the book that Phillip had brought over and remembered Rae telling Phil it was her favourite.  He took it gingerly and gently put it in her bag for her. 

“I’d never be good at something like sewing.”  Rae admired the girls. 

“It’s pretty boring.”  Chloe opined. “I only did it cos me mum said to.”

“That’s a shite reason to study something.”  Archie said and Chloe nodded her agreement.

“I won’t do it next year.”  She shrugged. 

Finn gently prodded Rae and she looked at him, he nodded to the sandwich and she realised what he had handed her.  She smiled at him and gave him a kiss before opening up the sandwich and taking a bite.  Mayonnaise and peanut butter.  She looked back at him with a loving smile.  It was her favourite sandwich to eat at the moment.  He grinned, satisfied, and watched her eat, while he ate his cheese and tomato sauce sandwich.  When she was finished he poked around in his bag and produced an apple for her.  She liked apples.  He ate an orange and didn’t say much as the gang banged on about plans for this Friday night. 

He was starting to feel nervous about his one on one with Kester this afternoon. 

Plus he was really rather horny.  And watching Rae’s mouth move as she ate and talked did nothing to alleviate that. 

His eyes kept dropping down to her breasts.  They were popping a little over the top of her bra, he could see it through her shirt.  They were a bit bigger and he liked it. 

“You coming round to mine this after?”  He asked, knowing that Linda and Karim would be home today, and he wanted privacy for how much he was gonna make her scream. 

“Alright.  What about Kester?”

“I’ll be finished at 5.  Come for dinner?”

“Alright.”  He kissed her neck and repressed a groan as her fingers slowly crept up his thigh. 

 _Keep going._   He traced on her back.  She shook her head slightly.

 _Please._   She let her hand creep a little higher, until she was almost touching his cock through his pants.

“Right we gotta go.”  Archie said to Finn.

“What?”

“P.E.  Gotta be there early.”  Archie reminded him.

“Right.”  Finn looked at Rae and she smiled in commiseration.  “See you at mine yeah?” 

They kissed and Finn jumped up, casually carrying his bag over his groin as he followed Archie towards the boys change rooms. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Missing’ by Everything But The Girl _

 

Chop sucked his teeth and went over the figures Danny had provided.  They were sitting at Danny’s desk; a small school desk affair with a few knick knacks and a lot of books and bits of paper with figures on them. 

“I don’t get any of it.”  He said and Danny grinned at him and picked up a piece of paper.  He pointed to at the first column.

“It’s relatively easy-” Danny started to say.

“I need to know why Joe would close the place down when he retired, rather than keep it or sell it.”

“Ah!”  Danny pulled out a single page amongst the dozens he’d provided.  “Small profit margin.”  Danny pointed to a dismally low figure.  “Not enough to hire someone to manage the place when he’s gone, and not enough to tempt a buyer in this market.”

“So it’s not running at a loss then?”  Chop asked.

“No.”  Danny replied. “Never has.  But Joe always paid himself the same wages as the rest of you, rather than more, for all the extra work he had to do.”  Chop nodded, trying to make sense of all the figures.  He sucked his bottom lip and furrowed his brows.

“And this shit makes sense to you mate?”  Chop look utterly baffled and turned one of the pieces of paper up the other way to see if it would make more sense. 

Danny cocked his head to the side and thought for a moment.

“More or less.”

“More or less?”

“Well it does.  But I don’t have any qualifications to speak of.  So I’m not a proper accountant.  Which is what Joe probably needs.”  He nodded as if that were obvious, “But can’t afford.”  He added. 

“But you can do this job?”

“Yes.”  Danny nodded his head, his single hat moving slightly on his head.  “But I don’t make any suggestions.  Cos I’m no expert.”

“Well what suggestions would you make, if you were an expert?”  Chop asked.

“Charge 10% extra on parts rather than just the cost.  Most mechanics charge a lot more than that, some up to 50%, so you’ll still be undercutting them, but bringing in a lot of extra money.”

Chop grinned suddenly.

“You telling me we only charge cost on parts?” 

“Yes.”  Danny nodded.  “And we haven’t put our fees up in about 6 years.”  Danny pulled out another piece of paper, and Chop didn’t even bother to look at it.

“But if our prices are so low, why aren’t more people coming here?”

“There’s a few reasons.”  Danny said, “We’re always busy, so it’s hard for our regulars to get in.  We need more mechanics.  We don’t have enough money to advertise to bring in more people, and when we do get new people, the place is a bit drab, you know?  We need a makeover.”  Danny listed the reasons off confidently.

“So we need more money to make money?”

“Well not that much.”  Danny considered.  “The extra 10% will bring in enough for an extra mechanic and some advertising.  The extra customers will pay for the makeover.”  Danny shrugged, “then hopefully we’ll have so many extra customers, we can get some more mechanics.”

“Danny, I think you’re a genius.”  Chop tapped his face and Danny smiled. 

“I’ve always wondered if I were.” 

“If I buy this place, will you stay with me?  Help me run it?”

“Of course.”  Danny said, looking honoured, “you’re my friend.”  Chop clapped him on the back and looked happy. 

“Cos I’m gonna do it.  I’m gonna buy this place when Joe retires.”

“I’ve got some savings.  I can help out if you like?”  Danny sounded excited.

“We be partners?”  Chop nodded his head excitedly.  And Danny grinned.

“Yeah?”

“Fuck yes Danny!  You’re me mate, you’re a fucking top fella and you’re a fucking genius!” 

“But what if I want to wear two hats?”

“Mate, as long as you can crunch these fucking numbers, you can wear 800 hats!  Alright?”

“800 seems a bit excessive.”  Danny answered seriously and Chop broke out into a big grin. 

“You out this Friday?”  Chop asked him.

“Yes.”  Danny answered happily, “My parents have said it’s ok.”

“Great!”  Chop gathered the papers together, “Got a special lass to bring?”

“No.”  Danny looked glum, “won’t bring a girl.”

“But do you have a girl?”  Chop asked, seeing the look on his face.  He was getting better reading subtle looks on people’s faces thanks to hanging out with 3 girls all the time.  Danny’s slumped shoulders, down cast eyes and downturned mouth, made Chop think that maybe he was feeling a bit sad about something, but he wasn’t completely sure. 

Danny nodded sadly and turned to the picture of a hand drawn duck in a pond.  It was in a beautiful silver picture frame and Danny took it with him every night when he went home, and bought it in every day. 

He picked it up and sighed.

“Tix.”  He said sadly.  Chop stayed silent.  He’d learned this from Izzy.  Whenever she wanted him to say stuff, she asked a question and then just looked at him.  Chop looked at Danny. 

“She’s the most beautiful girl in the world.  And one time she gave me a black eye.”  Danny nodded looking at the duck. 

“Alright.”  Chop answered unsure what to make of Danny’s words. 

“We went to the duck pond.  She drew this for me just before she went into hospital.”  Chop looked at the duck.  “It makes me calm.”  Danny breathed deeply.  “She doesn’t like to be touched.”  Danny said to Chop as if Chop would understand that.  So Chop nodded like he did. 

“Are you seeing her then?”

“Every night.”  Danny smiled. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Breathe’ by Prodigy _

 

Finn didn’t sit down.  He went to the window and looked out.  He’d given Rae the keys to his house, so she could go over to his place when she wanted.  He was hoping she’d be there when he got home.  Behind him Kester lit a cigarette and Finn took it as his cue to light one too. 

_The silence is so awkward._

Finn could feel Kester just looking at him. 

_I wonder if he does this to Rae?_

_I suppose he’s waiting for me to talk._

_I suppose I should._

_I’m paying enough for this._

_What do I even say?_

Finn opened his mouth, deciding to just let the first words that came to him pop out.

“Me mum wanted to kill me.” 

He heard a heavy intake of cigarette smoke behind him.

“Was this in that letter you spoke of, in our session with Rae?” 

Finn turned to him and considered him for a moment.

“Yes.”  He said softly, “how do you remember all these things when you don’t write any notes?”

“Practice.”  He said with a smile.

“Why don’t you write notes?”

“It’s distracting to the patient.”  Kester noted the distraction Finn was using.  The way he changed the topic.  “And my notes could be subpoenaed by a court.  I don’t want the angry confessions of a trauma victim being used against them one day.”  He smiled, “anything you say in this room, stays in this room Finn.”  Kester added meaningfully.  Finn sucked his bottom lip in contemplation, his eyes on Kester. 

He came and sat down and watched as Kester leaned back comfortably in his chair.

“Me sister died.  And me mum blamed me.  And she thought about killing me.  So she left.”  Finn bit the inside of his mouth and watched Kester’s face as he considered this.

“How old were you when-”

“I were 4 or 5 when me sister died.  10 when me mum left.” 

Kester watched Finn’s wary eyes and understood he was testing the waters as much as he was desperate for absolution. 

“And how old was your sister when she died?”

“I don’t know.”  Finn screwed up his face, trying to remember, “the letter said she stopped breathing.  She were dead in her cot.”  Finn bit his bottom lip, his whole body showing his vulnerability.  “I don’t know if I did something to her.”  Kester noted how he violently pulled at the cuticle around his nails; a form of self-harm, how his body was shaking with fear and grief, “I don’t know… If… I killed her.”  His eyes looked up, pleading with Kester.  “Did I kill my sister?”  He asked distraughtly.  

Kester got up and went to his book shelf. 

“What was your sister’s name?”  He asked as he pulled a book down, opened it up and searched through it. 

“Grace.”  Finn answered, his insides feeling numb and terrified at the same time. 

Kester sat down as he found the page he was after.  He looked up at Finn with deep compassion.

“It sounds like Grace may have died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.”  Kester held the book out to Finn, who took it and looked down at the paragraph, reading it carefully, slowly. 

_Sudden death of an infant, typically younger than a year old…_

Finn scanned the sentence again and then continued.

_No previous medical history, remains unexplained after autopsy…_

He looked up at Kester momentarily and then back down to the book.

_Is also called cot death, because infants are at highest risk from SIDS when sleeping.  Most commonly, the child is found dead in their cot, having no signs of illness or struggle._

“30,000 deaths a year globally.”  Finn murmured, shocked.

_Families require a high level of emotional and psychological support after the death of a child to SIDS, due to the unexpected and unexplained nature of the death, as well as the medical inquiry that follows._

Finn saw a drop of water hit the page and realised he was crying.  He wiped at his face unconsciously and re-read the passage. 

_Risk factors associated with SIDS are: exposure to tobacco smoke, lose bedding, sleeping in with parents, placing a baby to sleep on their stomachs…_

He read it again, his eyes focussing on one particular risk factor associated with SIDS. 

His mind went back to his own baby photos and he felt something twist into place inside of him. 

_There’s so many photos of me sleeping as littlie on me tummy._

_This book says that… that that can make a baby die._

_Is that what killed Gracie?_

_But why didn’t it kill me too then?_

_Why her?_

_But… but if it were SIDS… then it really weren’t my fault?_

Finn’s eyes snapped up to Kester.

“It weren’t me?”  He pleaded, barely able to believe it.

“It wasn’t your fault.”  Kester said with the authority of medical academia to back him up.  Finn’s eyes dropped back down to the book and re-read the paragraph, his fingers tracing over the risk factors.

“You can borrow that book.”  He said softly and Finn nodded gratefully.  “Bring it back next session.”  Kester tugged at his ear and leaned forward. 

“What do you remember about your sister?”

“Nothing really.”  Finn shook his head, “how could I forget her?”

“Studies indicate that an only child remembers their childhood much less than a child with siblings.  Why do you suppose that is?”

Finn shrugged.  He was an ‘only child’ and he remembered loads of things from his childhood.  Like the time he and Archie got in trouble for throwing water bombs when one hit Archie’s mum on the arse.  Or the time that Archie got stuck up a tree and Finn decided to leave him there cos Archie had been making fun of his teeth. 

“Shared memories.”  Finn suddenly understood.  All his childhood memories were ones that he had shared with other people, because they talked about them; reminisced. 

“That’s right.”  Kester said with a satisfied grin; he had gauged Finn correctly.  “If no one shared memories of Grace with you, it was inevitable that she would fade away.  I take it your parents didn’t talk to you about her then?”

“No.”  Finn sighed, “No, they didn’t say a word.  There’s not even pictures of her around.”  Finn’s anger started to rise.  “Why would they just decide to forget her?”  Kester noted that anger and folded his hands carefully considering what to say.

“Perhaps they wanted to protect you.”  He answered.  “They may have wanted you to grow up free from that sorrow.”  Finn stared moodily at the book shelf.

“They had no right.”  He answered angrily.  

“No.”  Kester agreed, “They didn’t.  And it’s really unfair.”  He sympathised carefully.  Finn dog eared the page in Kester’s book and didn’t notice the way Kester’s lips thinned when he did it.  He put the book in his bag carefully.

“Thanks for this.”  He said genuinely, but still piqued. 

“That’s fine.”  He waited for Finn to finish with his bag before continuing.  “Losing a child is extremely difficult.  But SIDS is particularly bad, because there’s no real known cause.  Your mother will have blamed herself.  Your father also probably blamed himself, no doubt.”

“Aye.”  Finn nodded his head slowly. 

“Depression is very normal after the death of a child.  Your mother may have been depressed on and off for years after Grace’s death…” Kester retrieved another book; a huge, dusty tome.  He sorted through it and opened it to a particular page again, “So she quite possibly developed depressive psychosis.”  He handed the book to Finn again and watched as he read it. 

“Having never met your mother, I can’t say with certainty that she had depressive psychosis.  But it does seem likely doesn’t it?”  He watched Finn’s head slowly nod. 

“Now it seems to me Finn… that she had a moment of perfect clarity when she left you and your father.”  Finn looked up at Kester’s face with hope.  “She must have loved you very much for that clarity to pierce through her illness.  There are many people with depressive psychosis who do not make such good decisions because of the way the illness affects their minds.”  Finn re-read the diagnostic definition of depressive psychosis.  “Imagine her horror and misery at being forced to leave you because of the delusions in her mind.  What a strong lady… and a loving mother… she really is.”  Finn sniffed hard and wiped his face again.  He took a deep painful breath as he put the diagnostic manual down.

“You’re pretty good at this stuff.”   His voice was ragged with emotion.  “I can see why Rae likes you.”  Kester scoffed silently and shook his head as Finn looked over the diagnostic manual on the table again.

“Have a glass of water.”  Kester offered, “and then we’ll talk about something else for a bit.  We can re-visit your mother next week.”  Finn nodded and headed out to the reception area where there was a huge chilled water fountain and plastic cups available. 

He was glad to have a moment away from Kester, he needed a minute to just let everything settle in his mind.  He drank a whole cup of water in one long swig and then filled it up again. 

_Sudden Infant Death Syndrome._

_Depressive Psychosis._

His mind mulled over the terms slowly; his insides aching less and less as the probable reality of what happened to Grace and his mother really sunk through his whole being. 

He didn’t want to wait outside for too long.  He was actually really eager to talk about some other things with Kester now. 

He took his cup and burst back through the door.

“So how do I make sure I don’t fuck up like me dad did.”  He said before he sat down.  And Kester smiled as he mulled over the question, scratching his ear thoughtfully.

“What makes you think your father fucked up?” 

“Me mum had to leave.  Da weren’t doing nothing to help her.”  Finn answered authoritatively, “I don’t want to make the same mistakes with Rae.” 

“Your mother and Rae are very different people.”

“Aye.”  Finn nodded his head emphatically, “but me dad and me aren’t.” 

“But Rae left you like your mother did.”  Kester prodded and watched the way Finn’s jaw set into a hard line. 

“It weren’t the same.”

“No explanation.”  Kester pushed.  “No discussion.” 

“Aye, but it’s not the same.”  Finn got up and paced the room agitatedly. 

“You said you have a temper problem Finn.”  Kester’s eyes watched Finn calmly as he stopped mid-pace and turned to the wall.  He took a deep breath.

“I do.”  He turned back to Kester, “I get angry easy.”  He shrugged, “as you can see.”  He added, unimpressed with himself.  He sat down with a plonk.

“What do you think triggers it?”

Finn paused and leaned back in his chair, looking at the ceiling. 

“I’m worried… now don’t take this the wrong way…” He looked at Kester, “but I’m worried it’s Rae.”

“It does appear to be.”  Kester agreed tentatively and he leaned forward in his chair.  “Are you worried you’ll hurt her?”

“No.”  Finn said with surety.  “And yes.”  He added, shame filling his eyes. 

“Why do you think that Rae brings this anger out in you?”

“I dunno.”  He shook his head uncomfortably and looked everywhere but Kester.  Kester lit another cigarette.

“When was the first time you noticed feeling angry?”  He furrowed his eyebrows with concern. 

“Um… well first time I got real angry I were about 10.  I punched me dad real hard in the chest.”  He scoffed, “I were too short to hit his face.”  He explained and leaned back in his chair.  “Me dad sent me to boxing classes to get it under control; discipline, you know?” 

“When you were 10?”  Kester rubbed his top lip slightly as he thought about this. 

“Yeah just after me mum left.”  Finn pulled out a cigarette, still staring at the ceiling, and lit it, “it were a bit of a rough time around then.”

“Yes.”  Kester agreed.  “And what about the first time you got angry around Rae?” 

“It’s kinda hard to pinpoint.”  Finn sucked on his cigarette, “like I got right pissed off at a bunch o’ twats giving her shit, before we was together, but it weren’t like this.”  He mused for a while, “I guess there’s been lots o’ little moments.”  He shrugged.  He furrowed his eyebrows, “it really started to build when she was hanging out with Stace and there was all these rumours about her and Liam.” 

Kester licked his lips and narrowed his eyes slightly. 

“So after she left you that first time?” 

“Yeah.”  Finn didn’t draw the link between his mother and Rae yet, but Kester let it sit with him, and let the silence draw out. 

“It’s been building since then” Finn sounded as if he was deep in thought, he smoked his cigarette and thought through everything that he felt.  And Kester waited. 

“You know, it’s cos I’m scared she’s gonna go again, and I can’t do shit to stop it.”  He sat up suddenly, “Just like me da couldn’t do shit to stop me ma from going.  I can’t help Rae!  It’s fucking mental illness innit?  And I got no control… no power… to do anything about it!” 

Kester smiled grimly as realisation washed over Finn.

“I can’t help her with this.”  He said softly.  “I have no control over whether she’ll leave again.  Nothing I do will change her mental illness…”  He swallowed hard, “and I’m terrified.”  He shook his head in realisation.  “I’m not angry.  I’m scared.”  He stood up and went to the window, not wanting Kester to look at him. 

Kester took a moment to let Finn sit with his thoughts.

“We talked about fear in your session with Rae.”

“Yeah but that were different.  That were fear for her.”  He mulled it over, “It were fear of losing her too I s’pose.”  He conceded and put his hands on the window sill and stared out, “but this is also that fear of not being enough for her.”  He struggled to find the words, “and… and I’m getting angry about it.” 

Kester waited silently as he sorted through his feelings.

“You know with every girl I ever been with, they treated me like I were so much better than them.  I guess I started to believe it.  Cos with Rae,” He looked at Kester, “She’s so much better than me.  And I don’t know how to handle it.  I don’t know how to handle her.”  He looked out of the window again.  “It’s about power.”  He said softly.  “She’s got all the power.”  He started to speed up as his mind spewed all these thoughts at him, “I can’t do anything.  I’m at her mercy.  And I don’t always understand her.  And I love her so much that I’ll stay on me knees forever if that’s what it takes…”  he shook his head, “I’m just not used to… being so powerless.”  He paused, feeling dirty, “And it’s not just that she’s better than me, or that she could leave me at any time.  It’s that I can’t help her mind either.”

“Finn, do you think that what happened with Olivia was an attempt to take back power?”  Finn turned his mouth down in distaste. 

“I dunno.”  He plopped his head against the window despondently, “am I that much of a fucking twat?”

“What was Olivia like to be with?”

“She were nice.”  Finn shrugged, his forehead on the window, his eyes watching a sparrow in the tree outside.  “She thought I were real pretty.”  He smiled cynically.  “She liked telling her friends she were fucking a teenager.”  He took a deep breath, “she were easy.”  His voice was low and thoughtful.

“And Rae is difficult?”

“In some ways.”  Finn answered honestly, “but I like that about her.  It makes me crazy.”  He grinned. 

“Did Olivia make you feel in control, like you had power in the relationship?”  Kester leaned forward and watched Finn closely.

“Yeah.”  He furrowed his brows.  “Mostly cos I could do whatever I wanted to her in the sack and she were fine with it.”  He frowned angrily at himself, “but she were all about how things looked to the outside world, you know?  Being sophisticated and having the perfect relationship.”  Finn shook his head, “it were too much you know?”  He ran his fingers along the sill, “but you know, if I had of stayed with her… I would have ended up with complete power in that relationship.  She were that kind of girl.  She wanted a strong man to be in charge.” 

“Seems like a lot for a 17 year old.”  Kester said gravely. 

“Not as much as Rae is.”  He smiled sadly.  “Rae is so easy because I love her, and I’ll do whatever it takes.  But she’s much harder than anyone else is cos… I don’t know what it’ll take, and I don’t know what to do… and I don’t know if I’m enough… I feel powerless and helpless.  And it makes me angry… cos I don’t want’a let her down.  I don’t want her to hurt anymore.”

“No matter what you do, there will be things that hurt Rae.  That’s just this world.”  Kester sat back in his chair, worried that Finn might be too obsessed with Rae. 

“I know.  But I don’t want to be one of them.”  Finn’s mind flashed back to the argument they had, the way he’d hurt her; she’d had to defend herself against his anger.

“I don’t know what to do Kester.  That’s why I’m angry.”  He looked back out the window.  “I’m so lost.”  He shook his head, “And I just want to be perfect for her.”  He felt a tear slip down his cheek, “and I’m failing.”  He turned to Kester, “What can I do for her  What do I do?”

“What about what you can do for yourself?”

“Fuck me, I want’a get it right for Rae.”  Kester considered his response and decided that this was another topic to address later. 

“There are several things you can do for Rae.”  Kester said gently, “you’re doing one of them right now.”  Finn dropped his eyes to the floor, “You did a good thing for her starting the joint therapy sessions, and coming here yourself.”  Finn nodded in response.  “You need to help create the circumstances; the conditions that she needs in order to get well.  But only she can take the path to recovery.”  Kester finished as Finn looked back out the window.  It was a long time before he spoke.

“It’s like we’re walking a path together right?”  He said and turned his eyes back to Kester, “and she gotta walk it herself, I can’t carry her… but if there’s logs and shit in her way – I can move ‘em?”  Finn clarified. 

“That’s a decent metaphor.”  Kester nodded.  “But you have to make sure you take care of yourself too.”

“Aye.”  Finn sat back down, “gotta keep me strength up for all them tree trunks.”  He grinned and Kester felt himself smile in response. 

“It is a lot of pressure on you Finn.”  Kester said delicately, “and you’re a young man…”

“And I’m gonna fuck up sometimes.”  Finn nodded, “I know.  But it’s how you handle the fuck ups that matter.” 

“That’s very true.”  Kester said warmly, “but I was going to suggest that it might be too much for you when you’re so young.”

“Maybe.”  Finn shrugged.  “But I don’t think so, cos it’s Rae.  So really, I got no choice.  Cos she me girl.” 

Kester considered this for a moment.  He knew he should tell Finn that there’s always choice, but he also knew that perhaps that were best saved for another session. 

“So how are you feeling right now?”  Kester wanted to move him into a positive mindset before ending the session.

“I feel… I dunno… like I got a purpose… like I know what to do now.”

“That’s good.”  Kester replied, “but therapy is still-”

“Necessary.  I know.”  Finn smiled at him.  “Stuff don’t just go away.  It takes work.  Rae taught me that.”  Kester seized upon this.

“Tell me three things about Rae that make you happy, or things that you like.”

“Only three?”  He laughed.  “Alright well… I like watching her grow more confident.  It makes me happy thinking that it’s cos we’re growing closer and she trusts me.”  He bit his bottom lip and grinned, “I like that she think she know more ‘bout music than me and she’ll fight me to the death about it.  My stubborn girl.”  Kester smiled as Finn’s face lit up, “I like the way she looks in the morning when I wake up next to her.  You know, with her hair all crazy and her eyes full of sleep and her morning breath… all of it.  It makes me happy that I got to sleep next to her.” 

“And where do you see yourself being in 5 years time?”  Kester asked, “If everything goes as you want it to?”

Finn narrowed his eyes in thought.

“We’ll have a little flat in London, and she’ll be writing, cos she loves writing.  And we’ll have a radio show together, that only plays good stuff.  And I’ll probably be doing some work with Chop too.  And we’ll be engaged.”  He bit his bottom lip.  “And we’ll still be happy.” 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Eye’ by Smashing Pumpkins _

 

Rae let herself in timidly.

“Hello?”  She called, but there was no reply.  She closed the door behind her and made a beeline for Finn’s bedroom. 

She was about 30 minutes early because she wanted to be waiting naked on his bed for him. 

She opened his door and was hit by the smell of him, it permeated the air in here.  She smiled and closed the door behind her. 

She put her bag on the floor and looked around his room.  Finn had two desks in his room, one which held all his crap, and the other one he was supposed to use to study at.  All the items from his studying desk still laid on the floor from the other day, although they had been brushed up into the corner to keep them out of the way. 

She went over to the desk that held all his crap and looked at the books he had strewn across it.  She’d never really looked at this desk, it was over in the far corner of his large room. 

She looked over the top of the desk at the mess, there were several ‘learning to draw’ books, she smiled when she pulled out a sheet of paper with a series of improving eyes drawn on it.  The last one looked quite a lot like her own eyes. 

“So this is what you’re doing in your free periods Finley.”  She muttered and put the piece of paper down with a happy grin. 

She moved around some paper, several pieces of sheet music and a pile of books with an old battered looking book on top caught her eye.  It was a book about women’s bodies.  She picked it up with trepidation, confusion and amusement. 

She turned to the first dog-eared page to see a diagram of the vagina.  A smile crept across her face and she sat at his desk feeling laughter rising up her chest.  She turned to the next dog-eared page; the reproductive cycle.  She turned to the front of the book.  It was a school book. 

 _So this is the book they give the boys at school?_  

_They never gave us a book about boy’s bits!_

She turned to the next dog-eared page and saw that there was a section about stretch marks on the page. 

“Striae.”  She said as she read the passage, “occur when the skin tears as the result of rapid stretching of the dermis.  Associated with rapid growth, excessive weight gain, pregnancy…”  Rae stopped reading and put the book down. 

He’d asked her what those marks were on her stomach, and then he’d read up on it. 

She didn’t know how to feel about that. 

_Excessive weight gain._

_Excessive.  Weight.  Gain._

She picked the book up again and turned to the next dog eared section. 

“Appropriate female diet?”  She asked the empty room incredulously.  She read it with a furrowed brow.

_I don’t eat like this._

_Who the hell has half a fucking grapefruit for breakfast?_

_No one, that’s fucking who!_

Finn had never said a word about what she ate, other than when he was worried that she wasn’t eating enough.  She flipped forward to the next dog eared page

It was a whole chapter dedicated to understanding the female mind.  Rae started to laugh as she read through it. 

“No wonder boys are so fucking clueless!”  She laughed.  “Evolution has made women reliant on men to be the leaders, the strength of the tribal unit, the providers.”  She started to laugh again as she flipped back to the front of book and checked the date of publication.

“1962.   Right!”  She laughed.  She flipped back to the reproductive cycle information.  It was so woefully inadequate.  She shook her head and thought back to what Elsa had said about why teenagers got pregnant.  This book had to be one of the main reasons.  The section on contraception in it was awful. 

She flipped forward to the last dog eared page.  It was about how to have sex.  She shook her head and looked up at his desk to see what the books were that had been under this one. 

“The new joy of sex.”  She chuckled and looked at the cover, a library book from Stamford council library; months overdue.  She realised with a slight twang that he had gotten these out when they had first started dating.  She flicked through the book, her mouth open at the detailed drawings of sexual positions, clothing, oral sex… her eyes stopped on a picture with a man tied up, the woman grasping his penis firmly; it was under the heading ‘slow masturbation.’  She read the whole page with a growing, devious grin.  She put the book down and looked back up at the pile

“The fucking Kama Sutra, are you fucking kidding me?”  She chuckled as she opened it up.  It was filled with pornographic images of sexual positions she’d never even dreamed of.  She found herself tilting her head sideways as she looked at one particularly tricky looking position, she read part of the text, a section concerning striking and the sounds associated with them.  Rae felt her eyes opening wider as she flicked through the book.  She looked back on the pile.  She picked up the next one and opened it without looking at the title; the first page she opened was about cunnilingus.  She felt a dirty smile creeping across her face.

“Did your research boy.”  She laughed as she noticed several dog eared pages in this book.  There were another four books in the pile and she saw that all of them had dog eared pages.  She shook her head.  Put the books back and moved the papers around again to make it look like she’d never looked at his desk.  The sheet music caught her eye; he was writing his own music it seemed.  She looked at the meaningless squiggles drawn on the sheet music; she recognised some of the symbols and smiled as she traced her fingers over them. 

_I wonder what this sounds like._

She looked at the other pieces of sheet music.  She saw a date scrawled on them; he’d started writing this in the summer holidays, but she wondered if he had been planning on using it for an assignment for music class before he dropped it because so much work had been done on it.  There were a few snatches of phrases of ideas that he had apparently been meaning to turn into lyrics, scrawled across the back of the sheet she was holding.  She read them, curious.

 

‘The sky is always different.  If you don’t look closely you don’t notice the changes.  The sun warms me and the blues are always different, how I marvel at the different hues of just one colour.  Every day I gaze at the sky and see it’s ever changing beauty.’  There was something blotted out with liquid paper next to that.

 

‘I want too much’ this one was crossed out and then re-written as if he had thought better of it.

 

‘The sun looks like a tiny candle flame in comparison.’  He had underlined this one.  Rae looked at the back of the other sheets and found similar scrawling on all of them; all meant to be eventually forged into a song, no doubt. 

 

‘How her venom bites.’  He’d drawn a little cobra next to this and she smiled before moving down to the next one.

 

‘To touch ivory’ next to this he had scrawled a few individual words; ‘forbidden’, ‘illegal?’  ‘Criminal’.  He had underlined criminal and Rae felt her lips turning up at the corners.  She looked back over his other musings.  Was this about her?  Her eyes shot back up to the venom statement and realised he had been writing this before they got together. 

 

‘But it is that simple.  There is no complexity.  Your voice changes space and time.’ 

 

‘Darkened space, so close to everything I wanted.  So far from ever having it.’  He had re-written this one a few times. 

Rae moved on to the next sheet.  She had obviously gotten them out of order.

 

‘Cherry lips.’  Crossed out with an angry jabbing line.

 

‘Why won’t you look at me like I look at you?’

 

‘FUCK.’  Written in angry frustrated strokes.  She smiled, understanding he was struggling to get the words down

 

‘I see the way you look at him.’  Crossed out again.

 

‘Sun going down, moon rising.  These orbs control our lives.  We rotate around one, and the other rotates around us.  Celestial movements that change life.’  He had angrily crossed out something next to this so vehemently that Rae couldn’t read it. 

 

‘Sometimes I wish I’d never given you that fucking 20p.’  It was about her.  She kept reading.

 

‘My mind won’t stop.  It won’t let you leave my dreams.  But in waking I say nothing.  I do nothing.  I become nothing in your presence.’  Rae felt an ache in her heart for him. 

 

‘If I could speak like him, would you look at me?’  Rae moved on to the next page.

 

‘Tracing patterns into words.  If only I could say what I wanted to.’  He’d written a note to himself next to this: ‘make it poetry Finley.’  She laughed softly and traced her fingers along the words.

 

‘You still visit my dreams.  Only now I touch you, my fingers finding secret places on your soft skin.  Your voice caressing me, your smile sinking me deeper.’  There were quite a few scratched out lines on this page.  Rae looked around the desk and found more pages filled with this huge lopsided scrawl, a few lines taking up each page.  But it seemed deliberate, as if each page was a different part of his journey.

 

‘Dark tumbling down over my soul.’  And a big ‘NO’ written next to that. 

 

‘The Amazons would shake and quake in your presence love.  The mightiest warriors would kiss your feet and beg for mercy.  I beg for mercy.’

 

The door opened and Rae looked up guiltily.  Finn smiled at her and then shook his head embarrassed.

“Found my teen angst?”  He joked. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Keep reading it if you want.”  He shrugged and kicked his shoes off.  “I started writing it in summer break.  Couldn’t stop myself, had to write something down.  Figured I could turn it into a song for music composition.”  He walked over and picked up a sheet.  “Pretty shite at the lyrics but I’d never written anything afore, so...”  He shrugged.  “But the music is pretty sound.”  He turned it over and looked at the sheet music.  “I was gonna ask Macca for help in words, he’s a right good lyricist, even if he is a bit of a dick.  But you know.  I left.”  He smiled.  “Glad not all of me writing is on the desk.” He pulled an embarrassed face.  He looked back down at his scrawling, “ ‘A junkie couldn’t ache this much’ ” He shook his head, “if you think that’s bad, you should see what I wrote when you broke up with me.” 

“I had no idea you were a poet!”

“Hardly.”  He laughed.  “Just write shite down.”  He looked down at it and shook his head, “badly.”  He smiled “Finn Nelson, purveyor of crap poetry.”

“Some of this could be worked into something real good.”  Rae took the sheet of paper Finn was holding and read the second line “ ‘I know intimately ever curve of your body, the taste of your kiss, the way you gasp when I enter you.  But I have never touched you.  I have never smelled your skin when making love, have never tasted your sweet honey.’  Sweet honey?”  She raised her eyebrows at him. 

“Aye I did mean your cunt.”  He grinned and sat on the floor, leaning his back against the desk.

“You wrote these before we got together?”  Finn nodded in reply.  Rae looked back down at the sheet; “ ‘The ocean at night time, I can see no land.’ ” She looked at him as he fidgeted with his fingers.

“Having a crush on you were like equal parts bliss and misery.”  He grinned at her.  She put the papers down and sat on the floor with him. 

“Can’t believe you had a crush on me.”

“Can’t believe that you can’t believe it.”  He replied and she kissed him sexually. When she stopped Finn gave her an impressed look.  “I think I need to write crap poetry more often.”  His look turned sexual, his eyes travelling down her body. 

“How was Kester?”

“Terrifying!”  He answered with a laugh.  “Illuminating.”  He added.  “Exhausting.”  He finished.  She straddled him and his hands went to her arse; lifting up her skirt. 

“Sounds like Kester.”  She said as she settled down on top of him.  She kissed his forehead, “D’you want’a talk about it?  It’s fine if you don’t.” 

“I will talk about it.”  He nodded slowly, “but not right now.”  He looked in her eyes, willing her to understand, “I just need time with it.  Is that ok?”

“Of course it’s ok!”  She kissed his nose and he smiled, “you never have to tell me what happens in therapy if you don’t want’a.  That’s the point of therapy: it’s all yours.”  She reached up to the table and picked up a piece of paper, he grinned as she read it out loud to him.

“ ‘I weren’t asleep.  But there was so much I wanted to say I closed my eyes to stop myself from vomiting out things you didn’t want to hear, things I were afraid to tell you, things that stuck in my throat, things I’d never say right anyway.’ ” She looked up at him and kissed his lips.  “This at the sexy party?”  He nodded.  “Tell me what you wanted to say?”  She asked with a sly smile.

“I wanted to tell you that you was beautiful.  And that I wanted to be with you.  Would you please let me be with you?”  He looked down for a moment, “I wanted to tell you that your voice is music to me, better than all the CDs I got.”  His hands touched the skin on her arms reverently, “I wanted to ask you to let me touch you.”  His face lit up, “I get to touch you now.”  He said with real joy.  “I wanted to tell you that I were falling for you.  And I didn’t know how to stop.  And since you thought I was a right prick, I wanted to stop.  But I didn’t think I could, and could you give me another chance.  I’d do better this time.”  Finn bit his bottom lip, “I wanted to tell you Archie were gay, so you’d stop liking him and maybe you’d like me.  That’s a pretty shit innit?”  He smiled grimly, “not a good friend moment for me: out your best mate so the girl you like will stop liking him and maybe like you instead.”

“I already knew Archie were gay.”

“Then why d’you kiss him at the rave?”  Finn sked, an old hurt resurfacing. 

“You saw that?”  Finn lowered his eyes and nodded curtly.  “He kissed me.”  Rae said, “Cos he said if I were a bloke he’d shag me.  We were just mates.  It were nothing.” 

“What about all the times you dragged him off to talk and stuff?”

“Asking him about his gay conquests.”  Rae answered with a grin and Finn’s brows creased.

“I were right jealous of him.  I hated him a bit.  And he’s me best mate.”  He shook his head. 

“Well I hated Chloe after you kissed her.”

“She kissed me.  And I were pretty high.  I hadn’t dropped any pills cos I had a whole plan of how I was gonna try and get it with you.”  He scoffed, “when I saw you and Archie kissing, I got some of Chop and was off my face for the rest of it.  I remember trying to find you but, and getting really grumpy after a bit, when I couldn’t.”  He smiled, “I wanted the debrief after, cos I wanted to hear what you did with Archie, where you’d gone… who you’d done.  And why you didn’t come back to mine after, like you were s’posed to.”  He looked pained, “you wouldn’t even look at me.  I hated it.” 

“Cos Chloe said you two was gonna date.”  Finn scoffed loudly in reply.

“That were never an option.  I never thought of Chloe like that.”

“We have got so many weird things in our past Finn.”  She said in a strange kind of awe, “How did we ever end up together!” 

“Fate.”  He grinned. 

They kissed and Rae, wanting to retire to the bed started to try to get up.  Finn pulled her back to him, hungry for her mouth and her knee slipped hard into him.  She heard a load groan of pain and Finn stopped kissing her and looked down, his hands going to his groin.

“Oh fuck.”  Rae realised she’d just kneed him in the nuts.  She got off him hurriedly and he curled up on the floor groaning in pain.

“Oh my god Finn!  I’m so sorry!”  She said and put her hand on his arm.

“Sssshhhh!”  He said shakily and kept his eyes closed, his hands cupping himself through his pants. 

“What can I do?”

“Just be quiet a minute.”  He managed to force the words out through clenched teeth; a painful groan followed them.  She knelt beside him silently, one hand touching his arm.  She tried to stay as still as she could, not knowing what to do.  She saw him taking some deep slow breaths and he carefully, gradually sat up.  He looked at her face, frozen in horror, watching him silently. 

“Alright.”  He said with effort, his hands still around his balls.

“Oh my god are you alright?  I’m so sorry!”  The words tumbled from her mouth immediately. 

“It’s alright.”  He panted, “I’ve had worse.” 

“I’m so sorry!”

“My fault.”  He shook his head, “can you get me water?”  He asked and he rolled back onto the floor the minute she left the room.

He had managed to sit himself back up when she returned from downstairs with two glasses of iced water and an apologetic look on her face.

“Much better now.”  He managed a grin, “thanks.”  He took the water and took several small sips.

“What can I do?”

“Not do that again.”  He gave a soft chuckle. 

“I’m so sorry.”

“No look Rae, it’s alright, really.  I’ve had much worse playing football.” 

“Why the hell are they so fucking fragile?”  She asked, still worried.  Finn shook his head in response.  “What does it feel like?”  Finn repressed the urge to roll his eyes in painful misery. 

“Well.”  He said patiently, “it’s like an intense ache from the balls that creeps up to your tummy and down to your legs.”  He smiled ruefully, “and your whole body feels like it’s on fire.  Even your arms feel like they’re burning.  And if it’s real bad you feel like you might puke.  And sometimes you do.”

“Have you…?”

“Puked?”  He clarified and Rae nodded, “a couple of times.”  He shrugged, “I play a lot o’ sport.”  He looked at her wide eyes, filled with compassion, worry… curiosity.  Of course.  He sighed internally and gave her what she wanted. “One time I forgot me box at cricket.  And I thought, ‘eh, what’s the worst that can happen?’ ”  He watched Rae’s mouth open in horror of what was coming, “I were so fucking glad that bowler weren’t a fast bowler!”  He laughed, “would have fucking shattered me nuts.”  He grinned at her facial expression, enjoying how horrified she was.

“Testicles are a stupid idea.”

“I’ll take them over periods any day.”  He nodded.  “I get knocked in the nuts, at most a couple o’ times a year.  How often d’you get cramps?”  She made a noise that implied she agreed with him.  He got up and sat on the bed, taking his jacket off on the way.  She walked over and stood in front of him.

“Can you play your song for me?”  She asked curiously and he grinned reluctantly.

“Alright.”  He mumbled and leaned over the bottom of the bed, pulling up the acoustic guitar.  He checked the tuning softly, self-consciously while she sat down and turned to look at him.  He paused for a moment and then started to pick out gentle tune.  After a while he hummed a bittersweet, aching countermelody over the top.  Rae’s mouth slowly opened in awe.

It was beautiful.

Filled with hope and sadness.

When he finished he scrunched up his face.

“Haven’t finished it.”  He explained.  “It needs a proper ending.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Told you the music was sound.”  He grinned, “But the lyrics.”  He shrugged and pulled a face. 

“You got a nice voice.” 

“Oh?’  He laughed, “I were just humming the vocal arrangement.  If I put words to it, I bet I’d sound right shit.”

“Not a chance.”  She shook her head and he leaned over to put the guitar away. 

He laid down on the bed and smiled up at her as she sat on the edge, looking down at him.

“Are your balls better now?”

“Much better.”  He shook his head, and laughed. 

“Want me to kiss them even better?”  She asked, simultaneously seductive and genuine. 

“Oh Miss Earl.”  Finn pulled towards him, “how do you even exist?  You’re far too perfect.”  He kissed her and let his hands make their familiar journey down her body.  His body still sung; was still filled with nerves as if he’d never done this before, his fingers shaking as he lifted up her skirt; so familiar, he did it every chance he got.  But still, it was like the first time he’d ever done it. 

Their kissing took on a particularly heated tone and he slowly removed her clothing, enjoying every small reveal of her body.  She started to kiss his neck and he sat up to get his shirt off.  She kissed down his chest and he watched intently as she got to his belt and slowly undid it her lips centimetres away from him, her breath cooling the skin on his lower stomach. 

_I love how hungry he looks.  Like he could devour me._

_But it’ll be me devouring him._

She gave him an impish smile and unzipped his jeans with her teeth.

“You sexy minx.”  He whispered watching every move she made.  He helped her slip his jeans off and watched as she licked his lower stomach.  He raised his hands above his head again, and felt the tension growing as she drew it out.  She spent a good long time licking and gently sucking his balls, he groaned the whole time, his appreciation, slowly building to yearning frustration. 

He wasn’t going to beg this time.  This time he’d wait as long as she wanted to make him wait. 

She kissed along his lower obliques and he felt his body tingling as she explored this new territory. 

“That tickles.”  He murmured and she bit him gently in response.  He laughed and sighed with pleasure at the same time. 

“How long to make you wait.”  She mused before licking down his snail trail.

“As long as you want Miss Earl.”  He answered smuttily. 

“Well,” she whispered as she took his cock into her hand, “you have had a lot of trauma today.”

“That is true.”  He nodded seriously. 

She took him into her mouth in way of response, and he sighed appreciatively. 

He watched her for a long time, lost in the way she looked as she licked and sucked his cock; exploring, experimenting, trying to see what he liked. 

He motioned for her to climb on top and she did happily.

_I never thought I’d climb on top of Finn Nelson._

_The view he must get!_

_Oh god!_

_This is a bad idea!_

She looked down at his face, his eyes focussing on her breasts, his hands finding her hips; pulling and pushing her pelvis to grind into him.  She stopped worrying and starting to thrust her hips, her insides feeling more sensitive than ever. 

Finn licked his fingers and reached down to gently flick her clitoris.  She groaned loudly and arched her back lavishly.  She leaned back, grabbing hold of his thighs behind her and thrusting her chest and stomach forward. 

“Louder.”  He encouraged her and she obliged, her moaning reverberating off his walls, “that feel good?”  He asked as he stopped flicking and started to rapidly rub her.

“YES!”  She cried loudly.  His hand happily found its way from her hip to her breast and squeezed it hard, his fingers pulling at the nipple and she groaned louder still.

“Louder!”  He ordered this time.

“FUCK FINN YES!”  She came loudly and he groaned in appreciation.  As soon as she finished he pushed her off and positioned her on her back; he’d been getting stronger; every morning before he left Rae’s house he did 40 push ups, and when he got home he’d hit up his dad’s weights, so he could get better at lifting her and moving her around like this. 

He slipped into her hard, fast and fucked her. 

“Scream for me.”  His eyes were alight as she threw he head back and groaned loudly.  He kissed her neck, biting her hard so that she cried out and enjoying the clawing on his back it earned him.  She kissed him with an almost vitriolic venom and he returned it.

“Harder.”  She ordered him and he obliged, the bedhead slamming into the wall.  She gasped loudly with each thrust and Finn grabbed the bed head to use it for leverage as he tried to go harder for her. 

With his other hand he reached down and found her clitoris again, he started to rub it frantically.

“You’re so fucking wet!”  He marvelled and she groaned loudly, reaching up to grab the bedhead and wrapping a leg around his waist. 

He felt himself getting close, but focussed on kissing her, trying to take his focus off how it felt to be sliding in and out of her.  He wanted her to come again.  The moment her cries reach that particular pitch that mean she was about to come he focussed all of his attention on the sensations in his cock and came spectacularly, moaning loudly, while Rae’s body shuddered beneath him.  He collapsed, his hand still between them, his fingers still gently caressing her clitoris.  He panted, his face in her neck.

“You’re fucking amazing.”  He whispered to her, “and so unbelievably sexy.”  He kissed her gently and she rolled her head back, closing her eyes happily.  He started to carefully position himself beside her and as he pulled his hand out from between them he was struck by a flash of red.  His eyebrows creased and he held up his hand and looked at it.  It was covered in blood.  He pulled back from her quickly and looked down at her, at himself.  His groin and penis were covered in blood, the sheets between her thighs red and wet. 

“Oh my god.”  He breathed, fear gripping at him, “what did I do to you?”  He leapt off the bed and put his hand on her inner thigh.  “Rae, are you ok?”  He asked frantically as she opened her eyes, realising something was wrong.  She looked at him, standing there with one hand covered in blood, his lower stomach… his cock… and fear in his eyes.  She jumped up and looked down at the bed and Finn tried to hold onto her as if she might collapse. 

“Oh fuck.”  She whispered, mortified. 

“What do we do?”  He asked worried.

“It’s nothing Finn.”  She turned to his frantic face, “it’s me period.  I’m sorry that-”

“Your period?”  He asked bewildered.  His eyes turned back to the bed and then to her, “you bleed that much every month?” 

“Um… yeah.”  She could feel the wetness between her legs that sex and orgasms had hidden from her before. 

“It must have started when you was on top.”  She explained and started to pull the sheets from the bed.  “I hope I didn’t bleed through to the mattress.”  She fretted, embarrassed as hell, but not wanting to make a big deal about it, since Finn was struggling enough as it was.  She felt her face burning as she looked at the stain on the bed. 

“I’m sorry.”  She said softly as they both looked at it. 

“You need to stop doing stuff.”  Finn ordered.  “Are you strong enough to shower?”  He asked her earnestly and she looked incredulous at him.

“You what?”

“That’s a lot of blood Rae!”  He took the sheets from her.  She shook her head at him.

“I’m fine.”  She soothed as she went to her bag and retrieved a pad.  She grabbed her clothes and went to the door. 

“Hello?”  She called downstairs.  No sound.  She flitted as fast as she could to the shower, Finn following. 

They showered, Finn looking at her with concern, but not daring to touch her it seemed.  She was mortified and with each passing moment she felt more and more embarrassed. 

“I’m sorry about your bed.”  She said quietly.  Finn looked down at the blood washing down the drain and then back up at her.

“I’ll turn the mattress over.  No big deal.”  He shrugged and his eyes again strayed to the blood washing off his own skin, staining the water on the floor of the shower pink.  He looked like he wanted to say something.

“I’m sorry.”  She repeated.  “It didn’t gross you out?”

“No.”  He said softly.  “I mean it’s a lot of blood though.  Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah.  I got like 5 days of it!”  She tried to joke but his eyebrows furrowed deeply and he looked down at the floor again.  “Have you got any questions?”  She tried to stop herself from thinking about the stained sheets and the horror on his face when he’d seen the blood everywhere.

“You’re sure I didn’t do that to you?”

“I were 2 weeks overdue Finn.  It’s me period.  Plus you know, me boobs are swollen, and I’m getting that familiar cramping.”  She smiled grimly.

“So it hurts?”

“Well yeah.  But not like a cut or something.”  She frowned in thought, “it’s like a dull ache.  And sometimes it throbs.  And sometimes it’s quite sharp I suppose.”  She massaged her lower back.  This period was clearly setting out to be fun.  Finn’s face was a mask of abject horror.

“Can I do anything to help?”

“Not really.  Heat helps.”  She nodded at the hot water tap and he turned the temperature up as hot as he could handle, and when he saw her enjoying it, he turned it up a little more, watching his skin turn red and her angling herself to get the heat on her lower back. 

 

 

He hadn’t allowed her to go back and look at the bed or the sheets.  He’d just walked her downstairs.  He ran back upstairs and grabbed all of her things while she had stood having an awkward conversation with Gary, who had just gotten home. 

He had driven her home and walked her up to her room, carrying everything and made sure she got into her pyjamas and got into bed.  He had gone downstairs and gotten some leftovers for her to have, bringing them up to her on a plate, her mum and Karim were in Aiesha’s room and hadn’t heard them come in.  He watched her eat, said nothing other than to reply to her questions.  When she’d finished eating he kissed her deeply.  He took her plate and walked to the door. 

“I’ll come pick you up tomorrow morning.”  He said softly, “get some rest.”  He ordered gently before turning off the light and closing the door. 

She kept waiting for him to come back, for him to climb through the window.  But she heard the car start, heard it drive away, heard the deafening silence after. 

It was the first night they’d spent apart since they’d gotten back together. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Get Me’ by Dinosaur Jr _

 

“Why the fucking fuck are we here at 6am?”  Chop moaned as he put on gloves.

“Best time to get us all together.”  Archie replied as he took the pads up and stood opposite Chop.  Finn stood yawning and watching on, thoroughly unimpressed.  He sat down and watched as Chop punched the pads hard.  Archie doing an admirable job of barely holding on. 

“And what the fuck’s wrong with you?”  Chop looked at Finn with disgust.

“Tired.”

“Stop fucking Raemundo for two minutes and get some fucking sleep.”  Chop answered with no sympathy. 

“I tried that last night.”  He grinned.  “Didn’t work.”  He flopped back onto the floor and looked up at the ceiling.  He’d barely slept a wink last night.  He’d spent most of it thinking everything over. 

“You guys didn’t argue again did you?”  Archie asked as he and Chop swapped gloves and pads.

“No.”  Finn grunted at the ceiling.

“So why d’you…?’  Archie asked, still worried.

“Oh, she on it.”  Finn shrugged.

“Oh.”  Chop pulled a face and held the pads.

“Oh right.”  Archie lined up his fist the way Tom had taught him and punched Chop’s pads as hard as he could.

“Fucking Archer’s got a punch!”  Chop celebrated, completely taken by surprise.  “Alright then, give us some more.”

Finn continued stared at the ceiling, uninterested in boxing, as Archie grunted with the effort of punching the pads as hard as he could.  He’d gone home last night and cleaned his sheets, soaked up the excess blood from his mattress before turning it over carefully and remaking the bed with fresh sheets.  He climbed into his bed, and he’d thought.  About everything that had happened that day. 

Eventually Chop made him get up.

“Right, so what sort o’ things can we teach the girls?”  He asked them earnestly. 

“I think we start basic.”  Archie said, “Proper fist and wrist alignment.”  Chop nodded his head.

“Good idea, I broke my hand the first time I punched someone.”  Chop grinned.

“Basic self-defence stuff.”  Finn muttered, “best places to hit and why.”  Chop grabbed a pen and paper from the bag he’d brought with him.  He wrote down Archie’s and Finn’s suggestions. 

“Show me the best places.”  Archie said and Finn pointed at his eyes, nose, ears, throat, balls and kneecaps without any need to explain why. 

“We’ll probably need to do something about how to hit those places.”  Chop added.

“Well it’s obvious isn’t it?”  Archie said.  “It’ll depend on height and situation?”  He added.

“So we need to get them on kicking as well as punching.”  Chop mused as if this answered Archie’s question. 

“We need to teach ‘em how to use weight advantages or disadvantages to their benefit.”  Finn yawned and leaned against the wall. 

Chop scribbled down everything Finn said as he continued to list off things.

“How to break out of basic holds.  How to break restraints.  How to use common items to inflict maximum damage.  Using your knees and elbows and head.  Yelling out ‘fire’ also helps.”  He finished, his brain unwilling to do anymore work for now. 

“Have you actually done a self-defence class or something?”  Chop asked.

“Nah, but I been boxing and fighting down here for over 7 years.”  He shrugged.

“And fighting?”  Archie asked.

“They don’t just teach boxing here.”  Finn replied.

“How long have you been coming Chop?”

“3 years.”  Chop answered.

“So you two have been coming here for years and neither of you ended up gay?”  Archie asked.  Chop and Finn looked at him confused.  “This is quite possibly one of the most homoerotic places I’ve ever seen.  Besides a gay porno.”  Archie shrugged, “but even some of them don’t come close to this…”  Chop looked around the centre.

“I don’t see it Archer.”  Chop said, his eyes trying to take everything in.  Finn looked over at an instructor yelling ‘harder’ at a kid who was hitting the bag, the strain making sweat glisten on his skin.  He shrugged.

“I’m with Chop.  Sorry mate.”

“You two are so straight.”  He shook his head. 

“Aye.”  Finn laughed.  “Proof you can’t turn ‘em.”  He picked up the gloves and Chop held out the pads.  Finn punched them hard and Chop ended up backing up and holding his hands up in mercy.

“Fucking hell, cunt!”  Chop said angrily, “calm the fuck down!”  Finn used his teeth to take off the gloves and threw them at Chop.

“Give it back.”  He ordered and Chop grinned.

“Alright.”  He laid into the pads, punching as hard as he could.  Archie watched as they both groaned and sweat under the strain.  He rolled his eyes. 

“So straight.”  He shook his head, and then thought about what Finn had said, “Oi Finn, what other fighting stuff?” 

“Eh, glove free.”  He shrugged.

“So you did street fighting?”  Chop asked, impressed,

“Aye.”  Finn answered unaffected, “And me and Rhys mucked around trying to copy Bruce Lee as well.”  He grinned, “Not much good at it, but.”  He said with a self-conscious shrug. 

“So Rhys is your instructor?”  Archie asked.

“Aye, has been the whole time.”

“You know Tom?”  Finn nodded in reply, “I just started classes with him.” 

“Yeah, he’s alright, he’s a bit hot-headed sometimes.”  Finn shrugged, “I mean I only had him a couple o’ times when Rhys weren’t in.  But he seems alright, I s’pose.” 

“Show us the breaking holds stuff.”  Chop suddenly asked.

“Alright.”  Finn dropped the pads while Chop used his teeth to take the gloves off.  “Archie, grab Chop from behind.”  Archie put his arms around Chop’s waist.  “No, go for neck.”  Archie put his arm around Chop’s neck, “Get a good hold, like you’re trying to attack him.”  Archie braced himself and tightened his arms around Chop’s neck. 

“Try getting out of it.”  He told Chop, “and you keep hold o’ him.”  Finn said to Archie. 

The first thing Chop tried was elbowing Archie, but Archie could easily avoid it and Chop couldn’t get enough power behind it to really harm him anyway.  He tried to twist and pull Archie’s arms off him, grunting with the strain.  Eventually Chop began to bend over, and realised that he was onto something, and as Archie’s feet left the floor, he plunged them sideways onto the floor, but Archie held on tight and Finn started laughing as Chop scrambled to escape.

“Alright!”  Chop burst out, “how the fuck d’you get out of this?”  Finn motioned for them to stand back up.

“You gotta use Archie’s weight against him.”  Finn explained. 

20 minutes later, Finn had taught Chop and Archie three different ways to get out of a behind hold. 

“I’ll feel much better when Izzy knows this stuff.”  Chop said as he looked up at the clock.  “Gotta head fellas.”  He put the gloves and pads away and headed for the change room.  Finn followed suit.

“Archie!”  Tom called out and Archie looked back over his shoulder.

“You guys go on.”  He said and turned back to Tom.

“I’m thinking we should have more sessions in a week.”  They heard Tom saying as they turned to go.

“Yeah.”  Archie eagerly responded. 

“ ‘Ere, d’reckon Archie’s got it for Tom?”  Chop asked as they got undressed for the showers. 

“Maybe.”  Finn considered. 

“Is Tom gay too?”  Chop wondered.

“Dunno.”  Finn shrugged. 

“You knew Archer were gay.” 

“Yeah cos I watched him looking at boys the whole time we was growing up!”  Finn laughed, “It weren’t hard to tell.” 

They walked into the showers; individual cubicles that covered their bodies from shoulder to knees.  Finn closed the door and Chop took up residence in the cubicle beside him, even though it was missing a door.  Finn watched the water going down the drain and thought of blood stained sheets and shower floors. 

“Chop.”  He said seriously, “can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”  Chop looked at him, “you got shampoo?”  Finn passed it over the wall to him. 

“You know how you said Izzy don’t like to be touched when she on it?”

“Yeah.”

“Well… why?”

“It hurts.”  Chop shrugged.  “She says her body aches.”  That fit with the old book the school had given him for sex education, so he knew it must be right. 

“Alright.”  Finn mulled it over, “and…” he stopped and considered how to ask this, “and how much does she…” He bit the inside of his mouth.  “How much blood is there?”

“I dunno.”  Chop rinsed his hair out.  “Never seen it.”  He paused and looked over at Finn, “d’you see it?”  Finn nodded his head.  “Really?”  Chop’s eyes opened wide, “what’s it like?”  He seemed to be equal parts repulsed and compelled. 

“I don’t know how they survive it.”  Finn said honestly, his worry showing, “if I lost that much blood, I’d probably die.”

“Fuck.”  Chop drew out the word, his mind clearly taking time to come to terms with this information. 

“I wouldn’t’ want’a to be fucking touched either, now I think about it.”  He shook his head. 

“Izzy don’t even want me around most of the time.  She gets right proper cranky.”  Chop smiled grimly, “Much better being a lad.” 

There was a moment of silence while they both considered this and then Chop turned to him with a cheeky grin.

“So is Rae the saucy minx we thought she’d be?”

“Aye.  And more.”  Finn said smugly and Chop laughed.

“Worth the wait then?”  Chop teased.

“Yes.”  Finn answered with a nod of his head, and clear admiration in his tone.

“Izzy’s right good too.”  Finn bit his bottom lip, remembering what Rae had said about Chop not making Izzy scream.

“D’you ever worry that we’re not as good as them?”  Finn asked carefully.

“Nah.  I mean they’d tell us right?”  Chop shrugged, “Izzy always seems happy enough.”  He put his face under the water and Finn bit the inside of his mouth.

“Shampoo.”  He said and Chop passed it back to him.  Finn washed his hair thoughtfully. 

“Why, you not up to the task Finley?”

“No.  I make her scream.”  He grinned satisfied with himself and Chop scoffed at him.  “But you know… I always feel like… right eager to get in her you know?”

“Yeah.”  Chop nodded, “Izzy makes me crazy.  It’s like, the minute we’re alone, I turn into some 14 year old schoolboy that’s shaking cos o’ boobs!”  He laughed and Finn joined in.

“Aye me too.”

“Yeah but Rae’s boobs… bloody hell.”  Chop shook his head, “too much for one man.” 

“I handle ‘em alright.”  Finn smiled smuttily and Chop made a laughing noise in the back of his throat, nodding his head appreciatively.  Finn lowered his eyes, knowing he was way too pleased to be bragging about sex with Rae, but knowing he was gonna do it anyway; he and Chop used to always talk like this.  He grabbed his soap and washed himself, trying to figure out if he even would talk to Chop about Izzy, and if he would; how? 

“Aye I bet you do, you dirty fucker!”  Chop laughed and Finn nodded cockily.  “Have you fucked ‘em?”  Chop asked with a dirty look and Finn laughed

“The things I’ve done with Rae would-” Finn stopped as they saw Archie walking up.  He exchanged a glance with Chop; no more vagina talk. 

“I thought Chop weren’t allowed to talk about Rae’s lady bits anymore.”  Archie said, making it clear they’d been heard. 

“I s’pose he can when I feel like bragging.”  Finn joked. 

“You don’t have to stop.”  Archie got in the shower next to Chop.

“Yeah but it’s not your cup o’ tea is it?’  Finn shrugged, “S’alright.”  He lowered his eyes, “Probably better I shut up anyway.”

“Speaking o’ cups o’ tea.  That Tom’s a right spoonful o’ sugar.”  Chop said with a grin.

“Shut up.”  Archie blushed.

“So he’s gay then?”  Chop persisted.

“I dunno.  But we are going out to a nightclub tonight, so maybe?”

“What about the pub?”  Finn asked.

“I’m meeting him at 1 in th’ morning.”  Archie shrugged, “Apparently that’s when the good parties start.”  He grinned excitedly, “I hope he’s not just taking me out to pick up girls.”  He frowned.  Chop turned to grin at Finn and then turned back to Archie.

“I don’t think he is.”  Chop said, “I’d never take a date out at that time unless I were planning on sinking the pink.”  He laughed at Archie’s scandalised face and Finn guffawed behind him. 

“Shut up!”  Archie blushed furiously, “He works here!”  He lowered his eyes and tried to not look too pleased.

Chop stopped his shower.

“Meet you fuckers out there.”  He said as he walked, completely naked, back to his gear.  Archie turned back to his shower and watched Finn from the corner of his eye, wanting to speak, but not sure how to. 

“Finn.”  Archie said softly, “can I ask why you’re going to therapy?”  The trepidation in his voice was clear and Finn decided it was best to just answer him honestly.

“I started it after Rae and me argued, you know?  Help me speak better.” 

“So I weren’t being a crap friend?  Didn’t miss anything?”

“No that’s me, remember!”  Finn smiled, “let’s do something together this weekend, just you and me.”

“What about Rae?”

“Oh, she’s having some alone time.  You know, cos she on it.”

“Oh right.”  Archie laughed, “So I get to hang out with you once a month?”

“Alright, alright!”  Finn conceded, “I’ll make more time!”  He grinned. 

 

 

 

 

_‘Come Undone’ by Duran Duran_

 

Rae woke up slowly, her eyes opening and seeing the empty space beside her.  She heard her mum crying in Aiesha’s room and wondered if she should be worrying more about these ‘weepies’ she had.  There was knock on the door.

“I’ll get it.”  She called through to her mum as she grabbed her dressing gown, wrapping it around herself as she went downstairs.  She noticed a box on the kitchen table, wrapped neatly, the heart shape on the top, her name written in it.  She shook her head, not knowing what to feel or think about it.  The door knocked again.

“Alright, I’m coming.”  She grumbled and headed out to the door. 

She opened the door to see Finn, looking almost apologetic.

“Am I too early?”  He smiled nervously.  “I couldn’t keep away.”  He seemed to apologise to her.  She motioned for him to come in, he followed her gratefully, worried that she might not have wanted him around.  Like Izzy with Chop. 

She sat at the kitchen table and pulled the box to her.  Finn’s eyes rested on it and a sullen look over his face as he looked up at her. 

“When did that come?”  He sat down beside her.  Not touching her, just in case.  Rae noticed the horrible absence of his touch. 

“Dunno.”  Rae shrugged, “it were just on the side when I came down this morning.”  She opened the box, Finn’s eyes watching her hands.

“Chocolate again.”  Finn said, unimpressed, “he needs to try harder.” He grinned at her and she leaned in and kissed him.  Finn kept his hands off her, but his fingers twitched like crazy to touch her. 

_But she aches._

_It hurts._

_Don’t make it all about your dick._

_She being nice enough just kissing you._

Finn felt his inside aching to touch her, but controlled himself with great effort.  He licked his lips when she stopped kissing him, trying to taste her on his lips.

She turned to the box of chocolates.

“This one is fancier, it’s got two tiers!”  She joked as she opened it up and took a chocolate out.

“You’re not gonna eat that are you?”

“This is not the time to be getting between a girl and her chocolate, you understand?”  She said with an unimpressed look.

“Yeah but you don’t know what he’s done to it.”

“Probably nothing.”  She took a bite and Finn’s brow furrowed; he tried to ignore the rising panic he felt by looking at the box closely.

“Is the second tier the same as the first?”  He asked, and when she shrugged he took the top tier off to see.  The minute his eyes saw what was in the second tier he dropped the first tier messily to the floor in shock and snatched the chocolate out of Rae’s hand. 

“What?”  She asked, her mouth still filled with the first bite of chocolate.  She looked down at the box and gasped. 

There was a headless mother mouse, blood had oozed out over the bottom of the box.  A dozen pink, hairless baby mice squirmed around, some covered in their mother’s blood, some feeding off the dead body.  Rae felt vomit rising in her throat and ran to the kitchen sink.  Finn followed her.

“Rinse your mouth out!”  He panicked.  She vomited into the sink.  Finn grabbed a glass and filled it with water.  He held it to her lips.

“Spit it out.”  He ordered as soon as the water was in her mouth.  She swished it around her mouth and spat it out.

“Again.”  He held up the glass of water, terror in his eyes, his hands shaking.  Tears streamed down Rae’s face as she turned and vomited again, knocking the glad from Finn’s hand.  It shattered as it hit the floor.  He rubbed her back and reached over to grab another glass, and instantly filled it up. 

“Again.”  He said and she nodded, took a mouthful and swished it around her mouth, spitting it out.  There was a shriek behind them.  Linda stood, clutching Aiesha to her chest staring at the box. 

“Mum.”  Rae cried.

“Call an ambulance, and police.”  Finn snapped at Linda and she nodded, running into the lounge room to the phone.  Finn turned back to Rae.

“Do you need to vomit again?”

“I dunno.”  She sobbed.

“More water, get it all out of your mouth.’  She took another sip, swishing it carefully around her mouth.  “D’you swallow any?”  She shook her head and spat out the water.  He stroked her hair.  “You’ll be fine.”  He said to her terrified face, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”  He soothed.  They heard sirens in the distance and he pulled her into his arms.  She pulled away and took the glass from him, wanting to rinse her mouth again.  Finn kept stroking her hair as she rinsed her mouth out frantically.  His eyes strayed over to the box. 

_That guy is dangerous._

Paramedics marched into the room, one of them saw the box on the table and pulled a face.

“It might be poisoned, she had some.”  Finn said and they quickly set about to checking Rae’s vital signs, asking her questions while Finn stepped back, out of their way. 

Moments later the police arrived.  Finn went over to speak to them while Rae was being checked out.  He carefully explained everything that had happened to the police officers, who took notes and looked closely at the box.

“We’ll talk to your sister now.”

“She’s my girlfriend.”  Finn corrected.  He saw the police officer do a slight double take and nod curtly. 

“Alright.”  He said as he went over to Rae.  Finn gritted his teeth and looked over at the female officer as she moved the dead mouse with her gloved finger.

“Is this the first thing she’s gotten?”  She asked kindly. 

“No she had flowers, chocolates, and a bracelet.”  She nodded in reply. 

“He’s escalating.”  She said softly to her partner.  She smiled at Rae and started to ask some questions. 

_Escalating._

Finn felt his inside boiling. 

“It could be Liam.”  He replied to the question the officer had just asked Rae.

“Liam?”  She asked.

“It’s not Liam.”  Rae said softly.  “It’s not his style.”

“Phil.” 

“You think that any guy who’s nice to me is dangerous.”  Rae dismissed the idea.  Finn turned to the officers.

“What are you gonna do to protect her?”

“There’s not a lot we can do.”  The male officer responded.

“This does come under the malicious communications act.”  The female officer said softly, “and we do know that killing and mutilating animals is often a precursor to other crimes.” 

“Like rape or murder?”  Linda spat.  “That’s what you mean isn’t it?”  She almost shrieked.  Rae silently gasped, her whole body tensing up.  Finn put his arms around her protectively. 

“Yes, it can mean that.  But not always.”  The male officer agreed calmly, considering Rae.  “We’ll increase patrols in the area.  See if we can find out who sent you the dead rodent.”  He tried to sound comforting. 

“Well that’s useless isn’t it?”  Linda asked in disbelief.  Finn nodded his agreement.  The female officer lowered her eyes as the male officer opened his mouth to respond.

“She seems ok, but we want to take her in for observation.”  The paramedic said. 

“I’m coming with her.”  Finn said resolutely to the paramedic.  “I’m not letting you out of me sight.”  He said to Re.

“Me too.”  Linda asserted.

“There’s not enough room for both of you.”  The paramedic led Rae from the room.

“I got her Linda.”  Finn said softly.  She nodded slowly.

“Ok.”  She answered grimly, “I’ll call your dad Finn and the school.”  Linda added, “I’ll meet you at the hospital.”

“Can you call Archie too?”  Finn asked, “Tell him to tell the gang.”  He turned without seeing her response and followed Rae to the ambulance. 

 

 

“Jesus Christ.”  Archie’s mouth felt numb.  “Birds of a fucking feather.”  He tried to joke and Rae shook her head at him while Finn shot him a murderous look. 

“You saying she fucking deserve it cos she not well, so o’ course she attracts the nutjobs?”  Finn asked angrily.

“No.”  Archie answered carefully, “not at all.” 

Rae sat in the hospital bed, a machine monitoring her vital signs attached to her. 

“I feel fine, I wish they’d let me go.”  She said softly. 

Izzy and Chloe arrived together, both hugging her as if she’d been given a death sentence. 

“Oh my god, are you ok Rae?”  Izzy asked frantically.

“What did the police say?”  Chloe asked with deep concern. 

“I’m fine!”  Rae said again.  “And the police don’t think that I’m in that much danger.”

“Yes you are.”  Finn said moodily.

“Stop it.”  She snapped testily. 

They’d clearly already had this argument too many times and Finn sat staring at the wall grumpily while Rae, resolutely ignoring him, reassured the girls and went over the details with them, Archie also hearing them properly for the first time. 

Chop appeared at the door.

“Raemundo!”  He said with worry on his face and he crossed the room, instantly hugging her the minute he was close enough. 

“I’m fine.”  She answered his unasked question.  “I mean horrified.  But fine.”  Chop and Finn exchanged a glance. 

“What?”  She asked.

“Guys don’t do shit like this unless they mean business, Rae Rae.”  He said, uncharacteristically serious. 

“I realised that after me mum yelled at the cops.”  She shook her head.  “It’s fine honestly.  I wish everyone would stop fussing and let me go home!”

“No but…” Chop looked up at Finn again and Finn nodded.  “Me cousin’s in jail.”  Chop started, his eyes looking up at Finn again and Finn nodded resolutely.  “He there cos he killed his ex-girlfriend.”  Rae’s mouth dropped and Izzy gasped.

“Chop!  Why would you tell her that?”  Chop looked over at Finn who nodded again.

“He started like this.”  Chop continued, ignoring Izzy’s thumping on his arm.  “Presents and shit, then it were dead animals.”  He shook his head, “Rae Rae, you gotta be careful.”  He hugged Rae and she turned her head to look at Finn, his face solemn and determined.  She reached out for him and he took her hand, moving closer to the bed; this argument between them over. 

Linda returned with food from the cafeteria to see all of Rae’s friends crowding around her, Finn protectively keeping an eye on the door. 

“Well I didn’t get enough for all of you.”  She said as she handed food to Rae and Finn. 

A nurse bustled in and took some blood.

“We should be able to let you go home soon.”  She said warmly.  “Most poisons would have done their job by now.”  She smiled and pulled the needle from Rae’s arm.  “Hold this.”  She told Rae to hold some cotton wool over the wound as she worked 

Finn looked at Chop meaningfully and Chop nodded, understanding that he had to look after Rae while Finn left the room. 

“Gotta pee.”  He said softly to her and kissed her cheek before heading to the men’s bathroom.

He walked into a stall and sat on the toilet, the seat down and let his nerves hit him.  He started shaking, tears springing to his eyes.  He knew he couldn’t be too long; he had to look after Rae.  But he just needed a minute to feel the panic and try to let it pass properly.  He didn’t want this shit inside of him; it made it more risky that he’d make a mistake.  He lit a cigarette, ignoring the no smoking rules and drew heavily on it. 

When he finished the smoke, he’d head back.

When Finn left the bathroom, Linda was sitting, crying, on the seats outside Rae’s room. 

“You alright?”  He asked her.

“Yes.  Fine, you know.”  She sniffed and looked up at him, “listen, I think Rae should stay at your place for a few days.”

“Me too.”  He agreed.

“Right well, they’re releasing her now.”  She said softly, tears streaming down her face,

“I’ll look after her.  Don’t worry.”  Finn tried to reassure her.  She nodded and took a tissue from her bag and covered her mouth as she sobbed. 

“I know.”  She waved him away and he went back into the room to see Chop’s eyes glaring at the door, he nodded, satisfied. 

 

 

An hour later Rae sat on Finn’s bed with a huge mug of tomato soup; a big bag of her clothes in the corner, and her mother’s order to not come back for a couple of days.  The gang postponed the pub outing tonight and re-planned it for next Friday.  She watched Finn fussing with a small tv set he’d stolen from his dad’s room, trying to get good reception, and smiled, feeling deliciously warm and safe. 

Finn’s dad and Janice had been horrified when Finn had told them what had happened.  Janice had been at home going over the finances for the community centre, and his dad had left work early to fuss over Rae.  Janice had cooked lots of food and Gary had offered to buy Finn a proper double bed.  Finn had nodded his head seriously in reply, saying that he felt that the longer Rae stayed here, the safer she was.  They were going shopping for it sometime soon she supposed. 

He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the floor.  She watched him in silence for a while. 

“Chop’s got a lot of shit in his family.”  She said suddenly.

“His dad had 8 siblings.  His mum 7.  There’s a lot of family to have shit.”  He smiled. 

“Are they Catholic or something?”  She joked but Finn nodded.  “Oh!”  She laughed, but Finn only smiled grimly before looking back down.  She watched him take a deep breath and keep fidgeting with his fingers. 

“Do you want me to sleep on the floor tonight?”  He asked suddenly.

“Why would I want that?”  He looked up at her with a confused face. 

“Well, you know… scary stuff happening, and…”  He looked back down at his hands, “you’re on it.  So-”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”  She asked angrily, “is that why you didn’t stay last night?  Is that why you’re not touching me proper today?”  She put her soup down and sat up angrily.  “Do you have a problem with my period?  Cos I can’t help it!  I don’t want to have them!”  He looked at her angry face, more confused than ever, but remembered what Chop had said about Izzy getting cranky and not liking to spend time with him.

“I’d go, but I don’t wantta leave you cos of what happened.”  He tried to explain.

“I can’t believe you!”  She jumped out of bed, furious.

“Sit down!”  Finn said with concern, “you’ve gotta rest!” 

“I’m going home!”  She was still wearing her dressing gown from this morning, so she started to go through her bag to get clothes. 

“No please don’t!”  He pleaded.  “I’m real worried about you.”  He tried to make her understand, “and I wish I could just hold you, but I understand that I can’t and I’m ok with it.  It’s whatever you need right?”

“What do you mean you can’t?”  She turned on him angrily.

“Cos… you know… I can’t.”  He said confused.  She glared at him and crossed her arms, waiting for an explanation.  “On account o’ your period.”  He lowered his eyes, so he missed her confused look.

“You can’t hold me cos o’ my period?”  She asked him.

“It’s ok.  I understand.”  He said gently, “I know how much it hurts.  I mean I don’t.”  He shook his head.  “Just please sit down ok?” 

“Finn?  What the hell?” 

“I’m trying me best Rae, ok?”  He looked up at her with pleading eyes, “Please sit down.”  He motioned to the bed but she sat on his desk and glared at him, still wanting him to explain. 

“Why can’t you hold me cos I’m on it?”  She asked angrily. 

“Cos you’re in pain.  And you don’t want to be touched.”  He looked up at her face, hoping he was doing the right thing.

“Where did you get that idea from?”

“Well, you said it hurts.  Me text book said it hurt.  Chop said, with Izzy-”

“Chop said?”  She shook her head.

“Well he’s got experience with this stuff.”  Finn replied anxiously. 

“You shouldn’t take girl advice from Chop, remember?”

“Aye… but…” he stuttered.  “But he said that Izzy.”

“I’m not Izzy!”  She snapped angrily and stood up.

“No, sit down, please.” 

“Why d’you keep wanting me to sit down?”

“Cos o’ the blood loss.” 

“Oh my god Finn, even at its worst, is not that much blood!”  She was exasperated.

“Well I don’t know do I?”  He said honestly, “when have I ever had the chance to learn about this stuff?”  Rae stopped in her mental tracks.  No mother.  No sister.  Stacey and Olivia were too perfect to ever bleed on their boyfriends.  Woeful school education on the topic.

“You haven’t.”  She answered.  “So instead of asking Chop, you should be asking me.”  She said firmly. 

“I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Well it’s my job to be bothered by you.”  She walked over to the bed and sat down.  “So ask.”

“Alright.”  He sat down beside her.  “Can I touch you?”

“Yeah, but we can’t have sex.”  Finn put his hand on her lower back and scooted closer. 

“How bad does it hurt?”

“Some months it’s real bad.  And others it’s just an annoyance.”

“Do you still want me around?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re not cranky?”

“I didn’t say that.”  He grinned at her. 

 

 

Rae stared at the wall, Finn’s arm was over her, holding a hot water bottle to her lower stomach, his body pressed against her back.  He was asleep, but he still held her tightly.  He had asked her dozens of questions about her period, and she had answered them all. 

Then they’d talked about her stalker, Rae insisting that she wasn’t in that much danger, that Chop’s cousin was probably some one-off lunatic.  He’d been really frustrated about her lack of worrying about the stalker. 

She’d kissed him when he was the most frustrated, and they had kissed for a good, long time.  His hand had crept down to her pants, ready to slide under them and then stopped, a frustrated groan coming from his mouth. 

He’d gotten her the hot water bottle without being asked; remembering the hot shower they’d shared yesterday.

So much of the day had gone by in a strange haze. 

She was exhausted.

She couldn’t sleep.

Someone had sent her a dead animal. 

Someone wanted to hurt her. 

She protested and told Finn to stop worrying.  But she as terrified, and his arms around her were the only thing keeping her sane right now. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘I Alone’ by Live _

 

Archie woke up on the floor of his bedroom, a bag of pills on his chest, his face aching and his shirt torn.  His joints sung out in pain as he moved to get up, the pills dropping to the floor.  He looked at them, completely unable to remember what they were.

“Special K.”  He said suddenly, “from Tom.  Right.”  He stumbled into the bathroom, and peed, hitting the rim too many times and having to clean up.  It took forever to make it clean, his hands seemed to want to be somewhere other than where he was telling them to be. 

He washed his hands and looked up at the mirror.

“Fucking hell.”  He looked at the big bruise he had under his left eye.  He had no recollection of how he got that bruise. 

“Special K.”  He said in explanation to himself and staggered back to his room to hide the pills.  He sat on his bed and yawned for a moment, willing himself to be coordinated enough to have a shower. 

Eventually he stumbled downstairs, still not feeling fully in control of his limbs and looked at the fridge for a long time before finding leftovers and sitting at the kitchen table to eat.  There was a knock at the door and he looked up at the clock. 

“Fuck.”  He said to himself.  He was tutoring Chloe in history and she was here.  “How is it fucking 5 o’clock at night?”  He asked himself, “fucking ketamine.”  He grumbled as he got up and went to the door. 

“Hi.”  She smiled wanly and wandered in.  “Where are your family?”

“Aunt Mae’s 60th birthday party.”  He tried to grin.  “I have to head out after.”  He nodded at the books in her hands.  “Mum would have made everyone go out after breakfast to help set up and stuff.”  He finished, uninterested in his own story. 

They sat down at the kitchen table, Chloe opening the books to the chapters on Napoleon.  But her eyes had barely fallen on them before she turned to Archie.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”  

“You know how Finn and me was hanging around for few weeks before he started dating Stacey?”  She watched him nod and moved her pen nervously between her fingers, “did he ever say anything about me?”  She asked and Archie sighed and looked away.  He remembered Chop and Finn bragging about girls; talking about sex and orgasms.  He remembered Finn saying that Chloe would be on the end of his dick by the end of the week. 

“Nope.”  Archie lied and picking up a pen he turned to the books.  Chloe crossed her arms across her chest and tried to focus on the dates and facts that Archie was talking about. 

“I’m in love with him.”  She said softly, as if the words had just decided, of their own accord, to leave her mouth.  Archie looked at her; she looked so fragile and vulnerable, her face pleading with him. 

“Chlo…”  Archie said, “I think you’re in love with the idea of him.  Not him.”  He watched her lower her eyes miserably, “I only say that, cos I think you can’t be in love with someone unless you know them really well.”

“Well I do.”  She whispered.  Archie put a hand gently on her back, “you been through a lot lately Chlo.  I think you just want a Finn.”

“I’ve loved him since before he were with Stacey.”  She responded sadly.  “It’s not a new thing.”

“Alright.”  Archie rubbed her back gently.

“I kissed him in Sutherland.”

“What?”  Archie shook his head, “I can’t believe he’d do that.”

“He didn’t kiss me.”  Chloe mumbled and Archie took a deep steadying breath.  “I feel so bad about it Archie.”  Chloe looked up at him, “Rae would never do that to me.”  She started to cry and Archie pulled her into a hug, rubbing her back gently.

“You’ve had more than your fair share of shite happen to you Chlo.”  Archie said soothingly, “I think you’re just fixated on Finn cos he seems perfect and you think he can save you.  And that made you make a mistake.  And that’s ok.”  He added carefully, “but you know, he’s not perfect.  And you can rescue yourself from all the bad stuff.” 

“Yeah.”  She said softly, totally unconvinced.  “Or Rae will save me.  Except she won’t after this.”

“Yeah but she don’t know so it’s ok.”  Archie smiled, “and you know, maybe she doesn’t have to know about this one tiny mistake.”  Archie watched Chloe shake her head. 

“I have to tell her.”

“No Chlo, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”  But she stood up.

“Arch, I have to.  I can’t have this sitting inside of me.”  She turned, not taking her books with her and headed for the door.

“Fuck.”  Archie scrambled to his feet and followed her.

“Chloe, think about the consequences.”

“I am.”  She said softly, “I can’t hold this inside Archie.  Rae taught me that the truth is best.” 

“No Chloe, wait!”  He called after her as she left his house, “Chloe, don’t!”  She got into her car, “CHLOE!” she pulled out of the driveway, headed for Finn’s place. 

He watched the tail lights fade from view and then, with a sudden clarity ran inside and called Finn’s number, his fingers fumbling, he had to hang up, take a deep breath and start again.  He fumbled the number again.  Put the phone down angrily and took a moment to calm himself.

“Archer, Finn does not live that far away; she’ll already fucking be there so get your shit together.”

He picked up the phone again.

 

 

She listened to Gary and Finn laughing in the kitchen.  It was the best they’d been since Finn had found the letter.  She worried about what would happen when Gary found out about that.  But for now a certain kind of peace had settled over Finn and he seemed to forgive his father.  She left them to be alone; making pizza from scratch.  They were stretching dough right now, flour dust all over the kitchen.  She looked through Gary’s record collection, impressed, and heard a tiny, timid knock on the door. 

Gary and Finn hadn’t heard and Janice was off buying Italian wine for dinner.  Rae got up and opened the door. 

It was Chloe, tears streaming down her face. 

“Chloe?”  Rae breathed, “Are you alright?  Come in!”

“No.”  She swallowed hard.  “I just came here to tell you something.”  She looked down and took a deep breath.  “You’re my best mate Rae; I love you.”  She said, “And I’m so sorry.”  Her voice cracked as tears dripped from her chin.  “I kissed Finn in Sutherland.” 

Rae heard the phone ringing behind her.

“What?”

Finn picked up the phone, trying to wipe the dough from his hands. 

“Ciao!”  He laughed down the phone, embracing the Italian food. 

“Chloe’s on her way there right now to tell Rae that you guys kissed in Sutherland.”  Archie said it as quickly as he could.

“What?”  Finn asked bewildered.

“Go and stop her!”  Archie ordered.  Finn dropped the phone and hurried out into the lounge room, Chloe was in mid-sentence.

“And then he-” She stopped when she saw him. 

Rae noticed that she had stopped and turned to him.  He saw the hurt, the betrayal, but it was the fact that her eyes were completely dry that worried him.

“Is it true?”  She asked softly.  Finn’s eyes flicked to Chloe and then back to Rae. 

And that was all she needed.  The hesitation. 

“Right.”  She said firmly.  She looked at the floor and then at Chloe, then Finn.  “Right.”  She pushed past Chloe and left the house.

“Rae wait!”  Finn ran after her, catching her hand as she left, but she ripped it from his hand forcefully.

“No don’t!”  She yelled, “Don’t you come near me Finn!”  She turned and left.  Finn balled his fists up, wanting to follow, but not sure if he should, he paced on the road watching her leave, biting his bottom lip.

_Should I run after her?_

“I’m sorry.”  Came a small voice.

“You’re sorry?”  He turned on her, “I did nothing wrong!”  He yelled, “It was all you.  And I didn’t tell her to protect you!” 

Gary came out of the house.

“What’s going on?”

“You ruined everything!”  Finn ignored his father and yelled at Chloe.  “You did it deliberately didn’t you?”  She shook her head crying.  “Stay the fuck away from me Chloe.”

He looked back down the darkened road. 

_Go after her._

_Don’t you come near me Finn_

Her words rung in his ears.

_What do I do?_

He saw the image of her leaving the first time, pulling her hand from his. 

He hadn’t gone after her then. 

He looked down the road again. 

He ran. 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5 - The Thunder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the fifth part of an 8 part season 3 fanfic.
> 
> If you can, read with the suggested music.
> 
> cheers m'dears

 

 

_ ‘Everlong’ by Foo Fighters  _

 

He ran.

Fast.

He couldn’t find her. 

He ran, but she was gone. 

_Where is she?_

He panicked; the thought of the stalker entering his mind violently. 

“RAE?”  He called out, deeply terrified of the possibilities the stalker raised.

He ran for her.  

“RAE!” 

He stopped in the middle of the road. 

The thought that she could hear him but didn’t want to talk to him because Chloe had labelled him a cheater entered his mind. 

“I DIDN’T KISS HER!  SHE KISSED ME!”  He yelled as loud as he could.  “RAE!”  He needed to find her.  Now.

_Where are you?_

He turned back and ran back the way he’d come, realising that she might have decided to walk through the fields. 

He sprinted as fast as he could. 

He burst into the wide open space of the playing fields.  There was no light, no way to tell if this was the way she’d come.

He stopped, hesitated.  There were four conceivable ways she could have taken to get back to her place. 

He turned around on the spot, wondering if he should go back. 

“Fuck!”  He spat angrily.  Angry at himself for letting her out of his sight. 

_What if he had just been waiting for the right moment?  What if he’s taken her?_

“RAE!”  He screamed as loud as he could.  “RAE!”  He panted in the silence that followed.  His ears twitching, his hands fisted into tight balls.

His ears twitching.

What is that sound?

“Rae.”  He knew it was her.  She was crying.  Softly. 

He turned his head to try and figure out what direction she was in. 

He realised that she was in the direction of the car park, on the other side of the fields.  There were benches over there; low slung metal monstrosities with no backs.  They were always freezing in winter.  He imagined her sitting on one, crying. 

He set off at a sprint in the direction of the car park.  It was terrifying running across that field in the dark, he could see almost nothing, but he could hear her muffled tears getting gradually louder, echoing across the field. 

He sped up, closing the space between them as fast as he could.

And then his feet were painfully swept out from under him and he crashed into the concrete footpath that the seats were beside, his hands stretched out to break his fall. 

By dumb luck, he managed to tumble neatly out of the fall and end up back on his feet, his shins screaming and his palms bleeding.  He’d run straight into one of those benches he’d just imagined Rae sitting on. 

He stood there, gasping for air, his body jarred and painful and heard her crying; she was beside him now.  He turned to his left, realising that she must have done the same thing in her rush to get home. 

“Rae?”  He said in a low voice.

“I fell.”  She cried miserably.  He turned towards her voice and could make out her outline in the moonless night.  He knelt down and crawled closer to her, reaching out in the dark.  He touched her hand and it felt sticky and wet.

“Are you bleeding?”  He almost sensed her nodding her head in the darkness.  “Can you stand?”  He helped her stand up and started to lead her back over the field slowly.  She limped painfully and Finn carried as much of her weight as she’d let him take while they hobbled slowly back to his place.  She said nothing, just cried, and he didn’t know what to say, he was too worried; his mind was blank. 

When he got back to his place, the front door was open and Janice was on the stoop.  Her mouth opened in shock as he led Rae in.  He sat her down in the kitchen and Janice went up to the bathroom to bring down cloths, disinfectant and her favourite soothing ointment.  He knelt in front of her and took stock of the damage; both of her palms were torn up, her knees bleeding, her stockings shredded.  There was a slight bruise forming along her jawline, a small graze on her chin.  Her left ankle was quite swollen and her right elbow was bloodied up badly.  But it was the hurt in her eyes that he noticed the most. 

“Iodine’s the best for this.”  Janice came back into the kitchen with several items.  She went to the sink and filled up a bowl with warm water.  Rae just watched Finn distrustfully. 

“Your father is out looking for you.”  She said softly as she put the bowl of hot water down. 

“Janice do you mind?”  Finn said without taking his eyes off Rae’s face.  She put some disinfectant in the water. 

“Wash the wounds.  Dry them.  Put the iodine on.”  She ordered.  “Wait for that to dry and put some of this cream on them.”  She held out an old looking tube of something, the name long worn off.  “Then use these dressings to cover them.”  She pointed at them.  “Got it?”  He nodded his head.  “I’ll put the tv on nice and loud then.”  She said as she left the room, closing the door behind her. 

“Can you take your stockings off?”  He asked gently and she sniffed as she stood up, Finn stood up and turned away to give her privacy.  He saw his own battered hands and went to the sink to wash them off quickly as Rae finished slipping off her pants, leaving her skirt on.  He knelt before her again and looked closer at the damage on her knees, and also saw the bruising forming on her shins that he had expected to see, his own shins throbbed in sympathy.

Without a word he put the cloth in the water and gently washed her wounds, carefully getting all the dirt and grit out.  She had sharply inhaled when he had begun, and now she seemed to be holding her breath, her lips drawn in a tight line, her eyes dry now. 

He worked in silence, trying to gather his emotions and thoughts.

Her elbow was particularly bad; there was a large piece of gravel caught in the wound and he carefully pulled it out, she gasped with pain.

“Sorry.”  He whispered, but kept going. 

“I can’t find them!”  He heard his father coming through the front door in a panic.  “I’ll have to ring Linda.”  He heard Janice’s voice like a low murmur and was unable to make out what she was saying, but his father didn’t come into the kitchen to use the phone and the televisions volume went up a little more. 

He looked up at the graze on her face, saw her looking down at him and lowered his eyes.  He took a deep breath and looked back up at her.

“I didn’t kiss Chloe.”  He said as he started to clean the slight graze under her chin.  “She kissed me and I told her to stop straight away.”  She stared at him silently as he gently wiped her face clean. 

He picked up the towel Janice had brought down and pressed it to each wound carefully, attempting to dry them. 

“I know.”  She said finally, “Chloe told me.”  She watched Finn’s eyebrows furrow, “She were very quick to say it weren’t your fault.  Very eager to take the blame all to herself.” 

Finn bit the inside of his mouth and considered this.

“Then why are you-”

“I’m angry at you, because you should have told me!”  She snapped.  “I shouldn’t have heard it from her, weeks after it happened.  I should have heard it from you the day it happened!”  She shook her head, “what happened to all this talking we’re s’pose to be doing?  Is it all nothing?”  He opened his mouth to reply but she kept talking, “I don’t expect you to tell me every single kiss you’ve ever had.  I don’t need to know the name of every girl… but I do expect to know when you kiss someone when we’re together!”  Her voice rose, “we’re dating and you’re kissing me best mate?”

“But I didn’t kiss her!”  Finn asserted.

“Your lips touched her lips.”  Rae responded, unmoved. 

“She put hers on mine, and I didn’t move my lips.  I just pulled away, straight away.  It were nothing.”

“No but it is something.  Chloe’s in love with you.”

Finn sat back on his heels and looked up at Rae.

“In love?”  He asked incredulously.  Rae nodded.  “She don’t even know me.”  He responded in disbelief.  Rae shrugged.  He sighed wearily and picked up the iodine and cotton wool.  He shook his head as he thought about everything she’d said.

“You’re right.  You’re so right – I should have told you.”  He sucked his bottom lip in thought.  “I didn’t cos she your best mate, and I didn’t want to split you guys up over something I thought were nothing.”  He shook his head, “I were wrong.  It won’t happen again.”  He looked up at her face, pleading.  “Please don’t leave me.”  He asked softly, vulnerably.  She touched his face and shook her head.

“I’m not going to.”  She said, “I’m just really angry at you.”  He let out a relieved breath and lowered his eyes while he took in a deep steadying breath.  “I needed a minute alone.”  She explained. 

“S’alright.”  He nodded, “anger we can work through.”  He grinned slightly, “breaking up though…” He shook his head, “that don’t work for me.”

“Me either.”  She smiled softly, reassuringly. 

“Alright then.”  He laughed shakily.  “You wanna yell at me?”  He nodded earnestly. 

“Not really.” 

“You might change your mind in a mo.”  He pulled a face as he put the iodine on the cotton wool. 

The iodine burned and she gripped the table with one hand, the other balled up her skirt hem. 

“Sorry.”  He murmured gently as he slathered as much iodine on as possible.  When he was done, he pulled up a chair and sat opposite her, waiting for her to tell him what to do.  “What now?”  He prodded gently. 

“Let me do your hands.”  She nodded at his palms and he held them up to her.  She gently dabbed iodine on his hands.  “You got any others?”

“No, I think me jeans protected me legs.”  He shrugged.  “What about us?”  His eyes strayed up to hers and she shrugged.

“I dunno.”  She thought for a moment.  “Show me how she kissed you.”

“Rae?”  He asked, feeling gross about this idea. 

“Show me.”  She insisted.  He sighed deeply and wiped his sore palms on his jeans, leaving iodine stains behind. 

“Alright.”  He answered unhappily.  “So… you be me?”  She nodded, “You don’t move your mouth right?”  She nodded again.  He took a deep breath, looking supremely uncomfortable he leaned in and gently put his lips on hers in a delicate, closed mouth kiss, for just a second.  “And then I pulled away.”  He said as he looked at her thoughtful face.  She wiped a tear off her face and looked at the wall as she hitched a deep breath.

“Now show me what you did.”

“Alright.”  He answered, resigned. 

“I’m Chloe.”  She said and he screwed up his face and nodded, pained.  He sat there, waiting for her to kiss him.  She leaned forward, putting her hands on his face.

“She didn’t do that.”  He said softly and she lowered her hands to his thighs, “or that.”  He shook his head, “no touching.”  Rae nodded and leaned in and kissed his lips gently.  It was hard to stop himself from responding to her lips.  But he kept his mouth grimly shut and pulled away almost immediately.

“What are you doing?”  He said, exactly the same way he’d said it to Chloe. 

Rae leaned back in her chair and stared at the wall for a while.  Finn looked at the floor grimly, the whole scenario seeming much bigger than he remembered it being now.

“You were drunk.”  She said softly.

“Aye.”

“Are you sure you’re remembering right?”

“Chloe kissing me sobered me up right good.”

“Did anything else happen.”

“We danced, drunkenly.  She got a bit close and I stopped her.”  He shrugged, “I told her you was the one.  I reminded her that you was her best mate.”  He shrugged.  “That’s about it.”

“And then you came and fucked me.” Her voice was almost emotionless as a tear slid down her face.  “Where you thinking about her when…?”  She stopped.

“Oh god no!”  Finn sounded repulsed.  “Don’t ever think that!”  He shook his head vehemently and tried to get her to look at him, “Rae.”  She turned to him, “I only think about you.”  He said honestly, “ever.”

“But Chlo’s so pretty.”  She sniffed, “you’re always surrounded by pretty girls.” 

Finn touched her face, his eyes filled with emotion.

“I don’t care about them.”

“But you notice them?”  Finn smiled painfully and looked away with a groan.

“Look.”  He started carefully, “I can see that some other girls are pretty.”  He touched her hand, “but I don’t want them.  I don’t feel anything for them.”  He willed her to understand, “I only want you.”  He moved closer to her, “You’re the most beautiful girl there is, Rae.  No one compares to you.”  He looked at her lips and then back to her eyes, “no one.” 

“But-”

“It’s like, you think Damon Albarn’s a right looker, yeah?”  She started to smile, realising that she was caught out, “and Jim from the Chippy, and Phillip that prick, and Johnny Depp, and Mike from me science class, and-”

“Stop it.”  She said with a cheeky grin.

“You think they’re all lookers.  But you don’t want ‘em, right?”  She shook her head.  “Same thing.”

“And Phillip’s not a looker.”  She corrected.

“Aye, but he’s taller than me.”  Finn grinned and she shook her head.

“Who cares?”  She rolled her eyes.  And he gave her a look that indicated that he did care a little. 

“Anyway…” he felt happier, knowing that they were moving past this now, “I know it were something with Chloe, but it were also nothing.  You know what I mean?” 

“You never thought about her that way?”

“Well I once thought-”  He stopped realising that he was offering up information she didn’t know.  “Eh…” he said softly, knowing she was too astute for him to be able to backpedal, “we did hang around for about a week before I got with Stacey, and I thought I might you know…” 

“You were gonna fuck Chloe?”  Rae said in disbelief, she felt herself pulling away from Finn.

“No…”  He shook his head, “I were gonna try and get her to maybe suck it.”  He tried to move closer to her, but a look from her stopped him and he lowered his eyes, “but it were obvious she hadn’t done nought afore; she were right frigid, and I were impatient, so I lost interest.  And then Stacey… was available… so I told Chlo that we’d try it again some other time.”  He shook his head, embarrassed for his past actions.  “She seemed fine, like she were losing interest in me anyway, so…” He shrugged.  “A couple o’ months later Izzy introduced her to us, and she acted like she didn’t even know me.  I figured she’d forgotten me and I didn’t mind.  Like it were only a few days we hung around.  It were really nothing.”  He shrugged again, “it weren’t until Sutherland that I realised she did remember it.” 

“Well you remembered her, so it couldn’t have been nothing.”  He screwed his face up in response to that and shook his head.  “Did you kiss her before you got with Stacey then?”

“No.  I told you – she were right frigid.  Probably hadn’t even kissed afore.”  He shook his head, “the only real kiss we had were at the rave.”  He sighed, “I should’a realised how much she fancied me.  I were just too caught up in you to even notice her.”

“You really fucked up with Chloe.”  Rae said harshly.  “You told her you’d try it again, you get introduced to her and pretend like nothing happened between you, she kisses you and you tell her that she’s the best kisser ever.  Then you tell her you shouldn’t kiss-”

“Wait what?”  He asked, but didn’t wait for her to reply, “I never told her that.”  He shook his head, “I were pretty high, but I remember that kiss.  I told her that being high made kissing the best thing ever.”  Rae stopped mid-thought.  “Where did you get that idea from?”

“Chloe’s diary.”  Rae said softly.

“Right… well it’s not what I said.”  He shook his head.  “It were loud in there, so I guess she didn’t hear me proper.”  He shrugged, “And you’re right, I fucked up with Chloe, but I were a right prick back then; I told you what a twat I were.”  He pulled at his nails, “I changed a lot since then.”

“Oh right, how much?”  She asked feeling unsure of her own thoughts now.

“I used to blow smoke into the mouths of girls thinking I were right cool.”  He said, “And then I’d get bored of ‘em, and just get rid of ‘em.”  He bit the inside of his mouth, “It all stopped after Stacey.  I told you that.”  He edged forward again and was relieved to see no resistance from her, “and then a few weeks later, I met you.”  He put a hand tentatively on her thigh, “and my whole world changed.”  She looked at his hand on her thigh and he wished he could read her mind.  He waited for her.  Waited for any sign of where this was going to end up. 

“What are you thinking girl?”  He pleaded softly.

“I dunno.”  She said softly.  “I don’t like that you have all this history with Chlo.”

“But I don’t really…”  His voice maintained that tone of pleading.  He saw her furrowed eyebrows, saw the burden this placed on her and the truth of what Elsa had said about telling Rae crept inside of his gut.  He wished Chloe had never said anything.  Not because he didn’t deserve a right bullocking for what he’d done.  But because of how it affected Rae.  He understood what Elsa had said even more now. 

“I promise you Rae, that if any other girl comes even slightly near me, while we’re together, well first, I won’t do nought with her, obviously.  But second, I’ll tell you right away.  Alright?”  He said seriously. 

“Alright.”  She said slowly. 

“We alright?”  He breathed, barely hoping that this was actually the ending of this argument. 

“I don’t want’a be mad at you.”  She looked up at him.  He smiled sadly.

“Well I gotta do better so you don’t havet’a be.”  She lowered her eyes. 

“Take your pants off.” 

“What?”

“I heard you fall over the seats too.  It sounded like you hit ‘em hard.  I want’a make sure you’re ok.”  He stood up and undid his jeans, letting them drop to the floor.  He sat back down and kicked them off his feet with his shoes.  She tapped her thigh and her put his right foot up where she’d tapped.  She pulled a face when she saw his shin.  He grinned as she gingerly touched it, feeling the heat in the forming bruise.  

“I’ve had worse.”  He reassured her. 

“I can’t believe you ran after me.”

“I told you I weren’t gonna let go o’ you this time.  I mean it when I tell you these things, you know?”  She looked up at him, her eyes filled with raw emotion, he held his breath, waiting for her to speak.

“I’m starting to understand that.  And believe it.”  She answered.

“Good.”  A small smile played with the corner of his mouth.

“When I heard you screaming me name…” She stopped and shook her head.

“I were right worried about you.”  He swapped legs so she could look at his other shin. “I worried that your stalker might have…” he stopped, not wanting to finish that thought or sentence. 

“It were frightening.”  She said as he put his foot back on the ground.

“I’m sorry.” 

“When I heard the fear in your voice, it made me frightened for myself.”  She reached out and took his hand, “I tried to call out to you… but… I dunno.  I were angry and embarrassed.”  She gave him a small smile.  “I’m sorry I scared you.  I won’t go off by myself like that until this stalker shite is sorted, alright?”

“Thank you.”  He touched her face, “Rae I don’t think I’d survive if something happened to you.” 

“Same.”  She touched his face and leaned towards him.  He slid off his seat, to his knees, intoxicated by the fragile look in her eyes, the need she had.  He found himself kneeling between her thighs, his hands on her face, hers in his hair.  He kissed her achingly, slowly, deeply; their tongues delicately tasting each other.  She moved closer to him, her body pressing against his, her arms wrapping around him pulling him closer.  He pressed himself to her, his hands dropping to her hips, his pelvis tilting towards hers.  He moved his hands under her shirt up her back and she arched herself to be closer to him. 

“I want you inside of me.”  She whispered with a sad aching tone that he couldn’t understand.  He groaned at how sexy those words were. 

“Alright girl.”  He lowered his boxers as he took a quick peek at the kitchen door, then pulled her to be more forward on the chair.  He kissed her heatedly, his hand crawling up the top of her thigh, reaching up her skirt to find her underpants, he intended to pull them aside and enter her right then and there.  He traced along the line of her kickers, down between her thighs and felt the pad and remembered that she had her period.  He understood that tone she’d used now and groaned, deeply frustrated.  She groaned in sympathy, their kisses becoming frustrated, her hand stroking his cock rhythmically, gradually speeding up.  He felt the pleasure starting to rise and knew she intended to make him cum.  He put his hand over her hand and stopped her. 

“What?”  She was confused.

“If you can’t cum.  I can’t cum.”  He panted, the frustration making his whole body ache.  A smile spread across her face and she nodded happily before leaning in to kiss him deeply.  The throaty groan that followed showed a deeper, more urgent sense of frustration from him, and his hands squeezed her flesh firmly, pulling her closer, his penis rubbing between her thighs as they rubbed against each other slowly, aching for each other. 

They didn’t notice the knock on the kitchen door.  They didn’t notice Gary and Janice slowly creeping in to peek around the door.  It was only when Gary cleared his throat that they noticed.

“Fuck!”  Finn said as he tried to pull his boxers up even though Rae’s leg and the kitchen table shielded him from his father’s eyes.  Rae lowered her head, her face burning, and wished she could lower her skirt, but Finn was jammed between her thighs, fumbling with his boxers.  Janice averted her eyes, and Gary looked at the space above their heads. 

“I see you’ve made up then?”

“DAD!”  Finn finally managed to get his cock in his boxers and looked at Rae to see if she was ok. 

“We were just wondering if you wanted to get some take away for dinner then, since it’s getting late?”  He pressed on in spite of Finn’s exasperated voice. 

“Fine!”  Finn waved his father away, “can you give us a minute?”  Janice was already creeping back out of the door. 

“Any requests?”

“NO!”  Finn glared at him, “just go please?”  Gary nodded and backed out of the room.  Just before he closed the door Gary stopped.

“How you going Rae?”

“Oh fine.”  She said without raising her face.

“Please don’t run off like that again?  There’s a stalker about.” 

“I won’t.”  She squeaked.

“DAD!”

“Righto then.”  He closed the door and Finn dropped his head onto Rae’s shoulder. 

“Bloody hell.”  He breathed, frustrated in more ways than one.  She laughed shakily and he sat back on his heels again and wiped his face.  He looked back at Rae.

“Are we really alright?”  He asked.

“Yeah.”  She touched his face.  “You didn’t really do anything wrong with Chloe in Sutherland.  Just tell me next time.”

“I’m planning on there not being a next time.”  He stood up and put his jeans on, leaving his shoes under the table.  Then he picked up the ointment Janice had left for them.

“Right.”  He opened it and squeezed some out on his fingers, “Ready?”  He saw her nod and then gently wiped the cream into her wounds.  He took the dressing and medical tape and carefully covered her knees and elbows.  It was impractical to cover her hands and her chin didn’t need it. 

“Gotta bandage this ankle.”  He muttered, making a mental note when he noticed how bad the swelling was in her ankle.

“I’ve never had a scabby knee taken care of this much.”

“Well you’ve never grazed your knee afore when you was my girl.”  Finn retorted playfully.  He stood up and held his hand out to her, “C’mon I gotta go apologise to me dad.” 

“Me too.”  She said as she gingerly stood up.  She took a tentative step and shrugged, “it’s not too bad.” 

They walked through the door and saw Janice and Finn’s dad talking, their heads close together, both holding a glass of wine, Janice smiling and slowly nodding her head.  Finn and Rae shared a look; their eyebrows raised. 

“Oh that’s the way it is, is it?”  Finn asked, his eyebrows raised suggestively.  They both snapped their faces to him, both instantly put on a face that suggested that they had no idea what he meant.  Finn shook his head at them.  Janice waved him off as if he was crazy and settled back into her seat, sipping her wine. 

“Right.”  Gary cleared his throat and tried to hide his blush by looking down. 

“S’pose I better get the take away.”  He said and got up, Finn watching him with a knowing smile.  He fumbled his keys and gave a nervous chuckle and left hurriedly, Finn giving him the same look the whole way. 

Finn and Rae sat together on the lounge and Finn turned his eyes to Janice.

“Not a word you cheeky bastard.”  Janice said with a shake of her head.

“I haven’t said anything.”  He grinned.  She narrowed her eyes at him and took another sip of wine. 

 

 

Finn laid in bed and watched her turn the light on and off 8 times.  Sometimes she’d managed to just do 8, other times it would end up being 64 times.  8 flicks in 8 groups.  He never said anything just watched her.  She counted and blushed and tried to do it as quick as she could, not looking at him. 

_Should I say something?_

He watched her start another set of 8.

“It’s alright.”  He said softly.  He didn’t need to say anything else.  He saw her body relax a little as she finished off the 8 and turned to him, an apologetic smile on her face. 

“Sorry that I’m so mad.”  He shrugged and she limped over to him, her now bandaged ankle, giving her grief, and slowly undressed, her underpants staying on.  Finn looked at those large plain white cotton briefs glumly.  He noticed her fidgeting self-consciously.

“What’s wrong?”

“I feel weird… you looking at me granny undies.”  A smile slowly crept across his face.

“Granny undies!”  He chuckled.

“Every girl’s got ‘em.”  She protested against his chuckles. 

“I don’t care what every girl’s got, I care about what you’ve got.”  He said as he slid his fingers under the thick elastic at her hips.  “They’re like some fucking mediaeval chastity belt.”  He laughed, enjoying the way her face reddened.

“Leave off!”  She laughed as he pulled her onto the bed, into his arms.  He laid beside her, tracing along the edges of her knickers. 

“How horny do you think I can make you before you’re off it?”

“Don’t you even think about it.”  She ordered, but his mouth was on her neck and she groaned as his hand caressed her thighs and lower stomach, but always stopping just at the elastic line. 

“You’re a bastard Finley.”  She moaned and bit his neck in response to his caresses. 

“Oi!”  He laughed, “That were right hard!”  She bit his arm and pulled a face at him.  “Oh it’s on now Miss Earl!”  In response she tickled his ribs and he grabbed her hands and pinned her to the bed, a triumphant look on his face.

“What are you gonna do now?”  He asked with a cheeky grin.  She arched her back towards him, her bare breast brushing against his chest and rubbed her thigh against his side as she brought it up to be around him. 

“You saucy fucking minx.”  He breathed with admiration.  She leaned up to kiss him and he eagerly reached for her mouth, but she pulled back, just allowing the tip of her tongue to lick across his lips softly, seductively.  He groaned loudly. 

“You tease.” 

“Just learning from you.”  She said innocently, pinned beneath him, but still wielding all the power. 

 

 

 

 

_‘Dreams’ by The Cranberries_

 

When Rae woke up the next morning, Finn was sitting up in bed next to her picking gently at the skin on his scratched palms.  He grinned deviously as soon as he saw her eyes open. 

“ ‘Morning Miss Earl.”  She groaned and put his pillow over her head. 

“Need more sleep.”  She moaned from under the pillow and he laid down beside her putting his arm over her stomach. 

“Alright.”  He agreed.  “You had a busy night.”  His tone of voice made her take the pillow off her head and look at him. 

“No it’s alright.  I’ll get up.”  She sulked, noticing the grin on his face.  “What are you so happy about?”

“I’ve got something truly amazing to tell Chop.”  He beamed like he knew a big secret.

“Chop?”

“Aye, he’s always telling me stuff about girls.  It’ll be my turn.”

“What are you gonna tell him?”  She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. 

“How did you sleep last night?’  He suddenly changed the topic.

“What are you gonna tell Chop?”  She furrowed her brows at him.

“Have any dreams last night?”  He asked meaningfully. 

“What are you-” She stopped mid-sentence as what he was saying sunk in.  Yes she’d had a dream last night.  She remembered bits and pieces of it.

“Oh no.”  Her face started to turn crimson and she saw from the look on Finn’s face that he knew. 

“Sounded like a good dream.”  He said smugly.

“Oh my god!”  She lowered her face, blushing furiously. 

“I were right worried when I woke up.”  He was far too pleased with himself.  “You was moaning and groaning.”  He touched her face, feeling the heat of her embarrassment.

“Oh my god!”  She groaned again.

“And then I hear you moan me name… You only moan me name like that when we’re fucking.”  He grinned.  “I had no idea that girls had wet dreams.” 

“I can’t believe I had a sex dream with you in the bed!”  She groaned and covered her face. 

“I liked it!”  He bit his bottom lip, grinning widely. 

“Shut up!”

“We couldn’t do it for real, so you dreamed about it.  It’s amazing.  D’you remember the dream?”  She looked up at him, mortified.  “Oh don’t worry.”  He soothed, “I’ve had plenty about you.”

“Really?” 

“How can you doubt it, with how long it took me to get in them granny pants o’ yours?”  He teased. 

“Leave off!”  She pulled back the blankets and got out of bed stiffly, all of her wounds aching, when she turned, Finn’s eyes were lowered, looking at where she’d been laying.

“Oh fuck Finn, I’m sorry.”  She’d bled through.  “I’m ruining all your sheets!” 

He shook his head, all the impish teasing gone.

“It’s not the sheets I’m worried about.”  He looked up at her, “I don’t care what doctors say,” He nodded at the blood patch, “that’s gotta take a toll on you.” 

“A toll of embarrassment.”  She sighed, “Get up, I’ll change the sheets.”

“No.  I’ll change the sheets.”  Finn answered resolutely.  He got up and stripped the bed, the mattress had a small spot of blood on it. 

“Well that’s both sides now.”  She shook her head, about to apologise again.

“Aye, you left your mark.”  He turned to her with a small grin, “Like territory.  No other girls allowed.”  She smiled at him.

“That’s right.”  She decided to go with it; it was nicer than feeling embarrassed. 

“That’s the way I like it, so we both win.”  He smiled reassuringly at her and she was so thankful for his kindness. 

_Kind people are so hard to find._

He kissed her mouth with such tenderness, such love that Rae felt it; she felt that he loved her.  She looked into his eyes and saw that look of his that she could never fathom.  She thought she knew what it meant now.  Thought she could finally believe it.

_That’s the way he looks at me when he’s thinking that he loves me._

_Finn loves me._

_The way that I love him._

He stroked her hair, his eyes taking in all of her face. 

_Oh my god._

_Is he going to say it?_

_I always thought I’d end up saying it first._

“You’re my world Rae.”  He breathed.  His fingers fell down her face slowly, lingering on her lips, his eyes following their descent.  She saw is mouth twitch, as if he had more to say, that look in his eyes intensifying as his eyes returned to hers.  He opened his mouth, his eyes, filled with love, blinking slowly;

“Rae.”  He said softly, “I-” 

There was a knock at the door.  Finn turned his face to look at it, his mouth still open as if the word were caught between his lips.  Rae felt her heart thumping as she looked at the side of his face, stunned at what she thought had just nearly happened.

“What?”  He answered he knock.

“Do you two want pancakes for breakfast?”  Came a muffled voice through the door; it was his dad.  Rae turned to look at the door, still in shock.

“Thanks.”  Finn affirmed and they heard Gary retreating from the closed door.  He turned back to Rae, “We should shower afore Janice steals the bathroom.”  He smiled and stroked her hair; that look still in his eyes, “Come on Miss Earl.”

 

 

She leaned against the shower wall and watched him washing his body.  She thought back to when she’d seen him naked in the shower and left.  And here he was, soaping up right in front of her, she could touch him if she wanted and he’d like that.  He washed himself and listened to her talk about school.  She never thought she’d end up here, like this.  She barely even thought about getting naked in front of him now, she did it easily.  Sometimes dark thoughts would enter her mind unbidden.  But mostly, the way he adored her and her body, drowned those thoughts out. 

She knew he’d want to wash her body, he enjoyed doing that, whispering how much he loved her body as he did it, but she’d have to refuse today.  His eyes had already fallen to the blood washing down the drain more than once. 

“What were Stacey saying to you?”  He asked in a lull in her monologue.

“Um… She said I were ugly and that you must compare our bodies.”  She smiled grimly, bravely, but Finn saw the vulnerability.

“Well I don’t.”  He shook his head, “but if I were too, she would not do too well.”  He reassured her.  “And you are not ugly.”  He said firmly.

“It’s alright.  I didn’t listen to her.”

“Good.”

“I know she got low self-esteem, that’s why she always on at other people.”  Rae shrugged, “and I’m trying to not see it as a competition, you know?”

“I don’t think Stacey has a low self-esteem Rae.”  Finn said sceptically.

“Maybe not.  I don’t really care.”  It felt nice to be so unaffected by Stacey.  What she said hurt, and there were still parts of her that fretted over these things, but for the most part, she simply let Stacey’s words slide off her. 

“She also said that you two shagged.”  Finn sighed and rolled his eyes.

“We didn’t!”  Rae nodded her head that she believed him and Finn looked relieved. 

“I told her that you told me the truth and she said you was lying, and that you was a smooth talker who got in all the girls pants.”

“I can’t believe she said that!”  Finn said crankily.

“Don’t worry what other people think.”

“I don’t care what they think.  I care what you think.”

“Oh, well, I know you’re a smooth talker who got in all the girl’s mouths.”  She teased and he narrowed his eyes momentarily before looking away moodily. 

“I hate that I were like that.”  He said softly.  Rae shrugged.

“I don’t.”  Finn turned his eyes to her, unconvinced.  “It’s a part of you – of your history.  I could never hate any part of you.”  She said meaningfully, “I told you that.”  An impish grin spread across her face, “you know, I do mean it when I say these things.”  He smiled, hardly believing his luck.

“Alright.”  He said, pleased.  “Do you know you’re the first girl to swallow me spunk?”  He said suddenly.

“I figured after you got all gooey-eyed over it.”  She grinned.  He laughed self-consciously.  “I’ll be doing that again.”  She said with a slight lick of her lips that made his balls ache. 

“Tease.”  He said, enjoying every minute of it.

“Aye.”  She copied him.

“First to taste it too.”  He added, staring at her mouth.

“Really?”  She sounded genuinely surprised, “All that head and no one got it in their mouths?”

“Cos I give a warning.”  He explained.  Rae raised her eyebrows showing she was surprised they’d choose to pull away.  He shrugged and started to soap up her chest. 

“I might do me today?”  She said softly.  He hesitated. 

“I can handle it.”  He said softly, “I mean… the blood.”

“I know.  But I’d prefer to.” 

“Of course.”  He handed her the soap without hesitation.  “Do you need me to turn around?”  This morning she had made him wait outside while she had dealt with the pad.  She shook her head.

“But you know, don’t go staring!”  He nodded his head in reply, and watched her face as she soaped up and started to talk again, this time about music.  He smiled wistfully, leaning against the wall of the shower and listened to her, watched the way her face lit up as she spoke. 

“What’s going on in your head Mr Nelson?”  She asked when she noticed his facial expression.

“Sometimes I miss this.”  He said softly.  She gave him a quizzical look.  He smiled, embarrassed and she gave him a look to indicate that he needed to explain, “now don’t take this the wrong way…” 

“Alright.”  She said slowly.

“Cos I wouldn’t change anything, except for some of the fuck ups I’ve made.  And I’m right glad that we’re talking more proper.  But sometimes…” He smiled reminiscing, “I miss just talking music with you.  Or talking shit.  Or football… or what nice coloured nipples you got.”  He smiled cheekily and she returned the grin, “Or not talking and just listening to your voice.”  He looked at her mouth and then up to her eyes, “sometimes I miss not having anything serious to talk about, you know?”  He sighed, “I been a silent kinda person all me life.  It’s strange being otherwise.”  He nodded slowly analysing the look on her face for any signs that this was upsetting her, “but I wouldn’t change it.”  He reassured her, even though he found none.  “Not for anything.  I like opening up.  But I do miss just listening to you bang on about nothing at all.”  He grinned, as she touched his face.

“I am sure I can manage to arrange that.”  She laughed, “You know what, let’s do that today.  No serious talks, unless it’s me proving I know more about music than you…”

“Oi.”  He warned and she kissed him, laughing. 

“And if you don’t feel like talking, I’m sure I can talk enough for the both of us.”

“What if you don’t want to talk?”

“Are you serious?”  He chortled happily at her joke, “in the unlikely event that I don’t want to talk, we’ll just listen to music.  Just hang out hugging.  How does that sound?”

“It sounds really nice.” 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ by Cindi Lauper _

 

“When they dry put some more ointment on.”  Janice advised Rae.  Rae was sitting looking at the scabs, wet from the shower, on her hands.  Janice was sitting at the kitchen table, one foot on the chair, her slender fingers carefully painting her toenails fire engine red. 

“And you shouldn’t cover them today.”  She nodded at Rae’s pants. 

“Alright.”  Rae watched Finn and his dad washing the dishes from breakfast; they planned to go out and get the new bed today.  “What’s in that stuff?”

“It’s a honey derivative.”

“Honey?” 

“Don’t ask me!”  Janice shook her head, “I have no idea how it works, I just know, that if you want the smallest scars possible then that’s your stuff.” 

“So you’re still fine to stay with Rae?”  Gary asked over his shoulder as he emptied the sink. 

“Yes.”  Janice rolled her eyes at his worried tone, “we’re going to do girly things while you two blokes go and do manly things.”  She grinned at Rae, and Rae couldn’t help but grin back. 

“I dunno.”  Finn protested again; he’d been unhappy with the idea of letting Rae leave his sight, even if for just an hour. 

“I’ll be fine here.”  Rae answered him with soothing and encouraging tones.  Finn finished drying the last plate and put it in the cupboard before sitting beside her, angling the chair to face her.  Janice and Gary exchanged a glance.

“You sure?”

“You’ll only be gone an hour, right?”  He nodded in reply.  “I’ll be fine.  I promise.”

“Alright.”  Finn said softly.  He put his hands on her waist, gently rubbing the swell of her lower stomach and massaging her lower back.  She had commented that the cramps were bad today, and he worried.  He kissed her gently.

“Now listen to me Rae.”  He said, “Remember how you punched me?”  She blushed and looked down, nodding.  “Anyone comes in here, you do that to them if they get close to you, and you fucking run.  You don’t worry about Janice, you don’t worry about nothing.  You run and you hide.”

“I’ll be fine.”  Rae kissed him but he would not be soothed.

“You heard me?”

“I heard you.”  She answered, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

“I’ll be as quick as possible.” 

“Ok well we’re good to go.”  Gary said as his son kissed Rae urgently.  Gary looked at Janice meaningfully and she gave him a look of pleading.  He shook his head and nodded back towards Rae and Finn.  Janice sighed and nodded, eliciting a grim smile of satisfaction from Gary. 

Finn stopped kissing Rae, just in time for her to see the end of this exchange. 

“Back soon girl.”  Finn got up and went with his dad, Gary giving one last look to Janice who nodded, resigned.  Rae waited until they left the room and looked at Janice.

“Shall I paint your nails?”  She grinned.

“What was that about?”  Rae nodded at the door Gary had just exited through and Janice groaned.

“Gary convinced me, whilst I was a little tipsy, that it would be a good idea for me to talk to you about…”  She rolled her eyes and shook her head, “About contraception.”  She added in a dramatic voice of doom, making Rae laugh.

“Oh god why?’  She knew she should be embarrassed but it was hard to feel that way around Janice.

“He found the pregnancy test.”  Janice shrugged.  Rae tutted and rolled her eyes.

“Finn was supposed to get rid of that.”

“He did.”  Janice grinned, “By putting it in the bin.  In the kitchen.”  Rae shook her head and Janice laughed. 

“I think I need to talk to Finn about how to hide things properly.”  Rae groaned, Janice smiling at her sympathetically.

“Boys are useless at that kind of thing.”  Janice agreed.  “Hands.”  Janice ordered and Rae held out her hands to her.  Janice started to expertly paint the bright red nail polish onto Rae’s stubby nails.

“This would really look much better on your nails.”  Rae mused.

“It’s too much for me.”  Janice grimaced.  “I tend to be a little shy.”  She apologised.

“Well if I have to, you have to.” 

“Alright then!”  Janice chuckled. 

“So how much ‘talking to’ about it do I get, before you decide you’ve done your duty to Gary?”  Janice pulled a face in answer.

“I really don’t know!”  She mused for a while, “I’m the youngest sister in my family and I have no children… I’ve never had to do this talk before.”

“Well, how about I tell you that I’m on the pill, so you don’t have’ta worry?  Talk done.” 

“Did you miss a few?”  Janice asked knowingly.  Rae pulled a face and nodded.  “I used to miss them all the time too.”

“They’re so stupid!”  Rae agreed, “Who’s gonna remember to take it at the same time every day?”  She pulled a face and Janice laughed.

“Are you still forgetting them?”

“No.”  Rae said, “I just went through-” She stopped.  “I actually haven’t even unpacked them.”  She shook her head at her own ineptitude. 

“Right.”  Janice said softly.  “So the last couple of days…”

“I totally forgot them.”  Rae shook her head disbelievingly. 

“Should we get another test?”

“No.  No need.”  Rae shook her head.  Janice remembered the bloody sheets she’d found in the machine and knew why there was no need. 

“Do you think that maybe condoms-”

“No.”  Rae answered firmly, “I won’t use condoms with Finn.”  Janice stopped to blow on Rae’s nails gently.  “How’d you remember to take the pill?”  Rae asked hopefully.

“I never could.  I just got a Mirena put in.  Much easier.”  Janice answered without a thought and started a second coat of nail polish. 

“What’s that?”  Janice looked up at Rae’s face, a thought popping into her head.

“Have you seen a gynaecologist?”  Rae shook her head, “haven’t had a pap smear then?”  Janice asked and Rae once again shook her head.  “I think that I might book you in to see a gynaecologist!”  Janice said, a little excited.

“Alright.”  Rae said, noting her excitement.

“I’m sorry.  It’s like having a little sister!”  Janice smiled happily, before answering Rae’s question, “Mirena is a type of birth control that might be perfect for you.”  Janice nodded sagely, “no pills to remember.”  She impressed upon Rae, “and after a truly heinous first fortnight, I got very little bleeding for the next few months, and after that nothing.”

“What?  No periods?”

“No periods.”  Janice said with a wise grin. 

“That sounds good.”

“Especially good if you’re actually having sex.”  Janice chuckled. 

“I suspect you will be soon enough!”  Rae raised her eyebrows suggestively.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  Janice feigned.  “So you punched Finn?”

“Yeah he were teaching me self-defence.”  Rae answered with no interest, “You and Gary… are you at it yet?”  She gave Janice a smutty look and Janice blushed. 

“Don’t be ridiculous Rae.  We’re just friends.” She looked pleased nonetheless. 

“C’mon!”  Rae teased, “You’d have that!”  Janice burst out laughing. 

“Stop it!”  She giggled. 

“You so want a piece of Nelson senior.”  Rae marvelled at Janice’s blush.  Janice laughed and finished Rae’s nails.

“Maybe a little.”  She admitted shyly.  “But don’t tell either of them!”  She chuckled. 

“Your secret is safe with me.”  Rae blew on her nails, “although I have to tell you, I don’t think it’s a well-kept secret.”  Janice pulled a face.

“Oh Rae.”  She shook her head, “I hope it’s better kept than you think.  I wouldn’t want to make Gary uncomfortable in his own home.”

“I don’t think you are.’  Rae answered seriously.

“No but I would be.”  She shook her head, “he’s not interested in me.”  Janice started to paint her own nails, as promised.

“Why would you think that?”  Rae laughed, “Have you seen yourself?” 

“I’m not that pretty Rae!”  She smiled sadly as she looked up at Rae, “besides, Nelson men don’t give up on their loves that easily.  As you well know.”  Janice sighed and looked down at her nails.  “He’s still in love with Kenzie.  He’s not thinking about me in that way.”  She shook her head thoughtfully as she painted a nail. 

“I’m sorry.”  Rae said and carefully laid a hand on her arm.  “I really thought he liked you.” 

“I have rotten luck with men!”  Janice lamented, a hint of a joke in her tone.  “I always end up with fools.  And the good men I find are never available or interested in me.”  She sighed, “I shall die alone!”  She laughed. 

“Alright, if we’re gonna talk like this, we need ice cream!”  Rae started to get up to get it and paused.  “Janice?”  She asked slowly, a thought having just come to her, “can I tell you something, and you keep it private, even though you might wanna tell?” 

“Absolutely.”  Janice answered honestly.  Rae believed her.

“We found the letter.  Finn…”  She trailed off.

“Oh no.”  Janice said in a small voice.  “Last week?”  She asked and Rae nodded, “he was very distant.”  Janice explained.  “Gary was very worried.  He worries a lot about Finn.  And you.”  Janice sighed.  “Is he ok?”

“I dunno.”  Rae answered, all of her fears surfacing.  “I think he is, but… I don’t know.” 

“I’ve been telling Gary that he needed to tell Finn about Grace and Kenzie all this week, but I never wanted Finn to find out by reading that letter.  It’s brutal.”  Janice looked devastated on behalf of Finn.

“He’s tough but.”  Rae tried to comfort her.  “And he’s got me.  I’m as mad as his mum!”  She joked.

“You mustn’t think that way Rae.”  Janice answered gravely.  “Not one little bit.”  She shook her head.  “Finn doesn’t have some weird Oedipus Complex; you don’t remind him of his mum.  He loves you for everything you are.”

“D’you really think he loves me?”  Rae thought back to earlier that morning.  She’d thought he was about to say it.

“I’ve never seen a young man more in love.”  Janice blew on her nails and Rae tried not to smile too widely.  “I think you might need a third coat.  Make them as red as possible.” 

“What are we gonna do about the letter?”  Rae asked as she laid her hands down for Janice.

“Oh Gary doesn’t need to know.”  She shrugged, “it’s probably better that he doesn’t-” Janice looked up at Rae’s worried face and stopped. 

“Finn burned it.”  Rae breathed the words as if she really didn’t want to say them. 

“Oh shit.”  Janice opened her mouth in surprise.  She took a moment to collect herself, “well I guess it’s only a matter of time then…”  Rae nodded miserably.  “I’ll try and mellow him to the idea of Finn knowing.  You try and make sure Finn really has forgiven his father for keeping this from him.”

“We got a plan then.”  Rae said with real relief, “Thanks Janice.”  Rae said earnestly, “I been so worried about this.”

“I can imagine!”  She smiled encouragingly at her, “don’t fret, we’ll sort it out.”  Janice went back to painting Rae’s nails, “They’ll be stupid boys about it.  And we’ll fix it.”

They sat in silence for a while blowing their nails and each planning in their head just how they would deal with their Nelson. 

“I’ll do your toenails as well.”  Janice motioned for Rae to put her feet up into her lap and Rae obliged.

“So why was Finn teaching you self-defence?”

“Oh it was nothing.  Some girl at school wanted to bash me.”  Rae shrugged. 

“Well I’m glad you know how to throw a punch.  I don’t.”

“Like I’ll ever need to know.” 

“You’re not taking this stalker thing very seriously are you?”  Rae shrugged uncomfortably.

“Me mum thinks he could rape or kill me.”  Rae said thoughtfully, “and Chop’s cousin killed his ex after stalking her…” Rae scrunched up her face, “but I just don’t see any guy being that obsessed over me.”  Rae explained earnestly, “it’s like… why would you?”  She asked, “Go find a girl that wants you.  There’s plenty o’ girls out there.  Why waste your time on me when I got a lad.”  She shook her head.

“Well I can name one fella that obsessed with you.”  Janice said seriously.

“Who?’  Rae scoffed.

“Do really not see it?”  Janice asked with a faint smile.  Rae shook her head. “Finn.”  Janice replied. 

“Yeah but Finn’s me boyfriend…”

“But when he wasn’t with you, he was still obsessed with you.”  Janice blew Rae’s toes for a moment before continuing onto the other foot. 

“Not really.  He had a girlfriend…” Rae disagreed.

“From what I understand, even Olivia was all about you.”

Rae pulled a face, thinking. 

“Yeah but I like him being obsessed with me.”  Rae said happily and Janice smiled. 

“As opposed to a stalker’s unwelcome obsession.”  Janice agreed with a nod. 

“Yeah Finn’s obsession doesn’t lead him to send me dead mice!”  She laughed, “His is a good obsession.”  Janice blew her other foot gently.  “Do you really think this guy’s a threat?”  She asked softly.

“Yes.”  Janice answered truthfully.  “When I did my fine arts degree I picked up a lot of gender studies courses as well.  There’s a lot of studies into violence against women Rae… Stalking is a serious issue.  Women get killed…”  Rae lowered her eyes. 

“I mean I’m scared… but… why me?”  Janice shook her head in sympathy.

“I don’t know.  I didn’t do any courses that taught me about how a stalker chooses his victim.”  She looked helplessly at Rae, “but you are special Rae.  Maybe you touched his life and now he’s angry that he can’t have you?”

Rae thought about this as Janice started to do a second coat on her toenails. 

“But there’s no one in my life like that.”  She said slowly, “the only boy I’ve gotten close enough to ‘touch their life’ is Finn.” 

“Well we know it’s not Finn.”  Janice said softly. 

“Yeah!  Cos why would he?  He’s already got me!”

“So there must be someone else.”  Janice concluded. 

“There isn’t but.” 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Fade To Black’ by Metallica _

 

_It’s dark in here.  And I can hear him moving around on the other side of the door._

_I know he’ll come in._

_Eventually._

_He always does._

_It’s not me._

_It’s not me he touches._

_Close your eyes Chloe.  Think about dragonflies._

_Remember coming down to the River Welland with daddy and watching the big fat blue dragonflies speeding around._

_Think about the green of the trees, and the feel of grass underneath you and the blue of the sky._

_Think about the warmth of the sun on your skin._

_Remember that time that a dragonfly landed on your foot._

_Think about the dragonflies._

Chloe opened her eyes and the image of that spring morning vanished.  Replaced by a dull grey dreariness. 

_The river looks so depressing in winter._

The sound of him moving outside of the room came back to her mind. 

She sat, her knees under her chin, her arms wrapped around her shins, at the water’s edge.  But still her mind kept playing tricks.  Kept taking her back to that house. 

_I have no one now._

_I am alone._

_Utterly alone._

A car backfired nearby and she jumped painfully, her body aching from having sat like this in the frigid cold all night. 

_I can make it all right._

_He’s going to come in._

_Dragonflies._

_DON’T TOUCH ME._

_My Rae.  Please forgive me._

_IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!  YOU RUIN EVERYTHING!_

_It’s so dark in here._

_And the green grass._

_Please Rae.  Please don’t look at me like that._

_The door knob is moving._

_He’s coming._

_The dragonfly on my foot._

_So beautiful._

_You did this deliberately didn’t you?_

_There’s no one here to save you Chloe._

_You’re all alone now._

_Please no._

_The door is opening._

_Is it true?  Please Rae, please forgive me._

_He’s walking in._

_And the sun is streaming down and ‘daddy look at me!’_

_He’s getting into the bed with her._

_Not me_

_It isn’t me_

Chloe gasped. 

Tears fell down her face as her mind raced, unable to settle in one spot. 

_I’m in love with Finn_

_I’ll come for you._

_Is it true?_

_Stay away from me Chloe.  You ruin everything._

_Please don’t touch me._

_You love the idea of him._

_I have to tell the truth_

_There’s no one now_

_As it should be_

_This is what you deserve._

She looked at the river.  It would be freezing cold.

_I do know him-you’re alone-is it true-the door is opening-the green grass and the-stay away from me-you did this deliberately-please don’t touch me-please-please-it isn’t me-the dragonfly that landed on your foot-_

_I could just walk into the river._

Blissful clarity. 

She started to rock back and forth, sobbing.

_Do it._

_No one will miss you_

_They’ll be better off without you._

_Do it._

_DO IT YOU FUCKING BITCH!_

She wept, her body shaking.  She nodded.

“Ok.”  She wept.  “Ok.” 

She started to prepare herself to crawl into the river, when a man crouched beside her.

“Are you alright?”  She flinched away from him.

“What?”  She asked bewildered. 

“It’s alright.”  He noticed the way she flinched, “I won’t hurt you.” 

Chloe looked at the man, he was vaguely familiar. 

“Je vais bien, je vais bien.  Qu'est-ce que tu fais ici?”  Her voice broke piercingly and she looked away, trying to discretely wipe her face.

“What’s that?”

“Je vais bien.”

“I don’t speak French.”  He smiled wanly.

“But aren’t you…”

“Rae’s French uncle?  No.”  He said with a sad smile, “but you’re her friend, yes?”

“No.”  Chloe said and started to sob.  Kester took out a handkerchief and handed it to her. 

“It’s freezing out here.  Why are you sitting out here?”

“What are you doing out here?”  She deflected through defiant tears. 

“My girlfriend thinks that I sit too much.”  He said amused.  Chloe noticed the jogging shoes, the sweat pants.  “So I take a stroll every morning.  I think she thinks I’m jogging.”  He said with a slight smile.  Chloe swallowed slowly and looked at him curiously.

“Alright.”  She sniffed. 

“Your turn.”  He said softly.  “Why are you out here?”

“I ruined everything.”  She sniffed again, tears still dripping from her eyes.  Kester eyed the wet grass and sat on it anyway.  He took his jacket off and put it around her shoulders. 

“How did you ruin everything?”  She shook her head and looked out at the river. 

“That’s right…”  She said as if coming out of a haze, “Rae told me – you’re actually her therapist.  I forgot.”  She sounded lost, her voice stained with tears. 

“I am a therapist.”  Kester agreed.  But he would not speak about Rae in any specific terms.  “So how did you ruin everything?”

“I don’t need therapy.”  Chloe said defensively.

“Well it’s not therapy is it?”  Kester picked up a rock and threw it into the river, “we’re not in my office.”  He scratched his nose, “this is just two strangers talking.”  She smiled at him and looked down at her hands considering what he’d said. 

“Alright.”  She said carefully.  “Two strangers talking.”

“That’s it.”  Kester nodded.  “So tell me how you ruined everything.”

“I fell in love with Finn.”  Kester fought to keep his face unaffected as she continued, “I kissed him… even though I knew he were with Rae… and I felt guilty… so I told Rae… and now they‘ve broken up... and it’s my fault.” Kester took a silent, deep breath, trying to conceal his disappointment.  “I’ve lost them both.”  She sniffed hard, tears falling down her face.”  Kester rubbed his face and licked his lips.  Thinking of what question to ask.

“So… so why did you fall in love with this Finn person?” 

“Because he’s perfect.”  Chloe turned her tortured eyes to him. 

“No one’s perfect.”

“Finn is.”  She shrugged and looked back to the river. 

“Ok.”  Kester agreed with her gently.  “And why did you kiss him, even though you knew he was dating your friend?” 

“I just wanted him.”  She struggled through the words.

“Why him?”

“Because he’s perfect!”  She said angrily.  “And I don’t deserve him!  Rae was right when she wrote that.” 

“Why do you think you don’t deserve him?”

“I dunno.”  She said softly.

“Ok.”  Kester wished he had his cigarettes with him.  “What did you feel when you kissed him?”  He changed tact.

“I felt…”  She paused.  “Desperate for him.  I wanted to feel…”

“What did you want to feel?”  She looked at him again.

“Anything.”  A tear slid down her face.  “If there was anyone that could… make me feel something…” She started to cry. 

“So Finn is someone that might be able to alleviate your feelings of nothingness… of numbness?”  Kester tried to put all the puzzle pieces together.  

“I thought he could.”  Kester folded his hands in his lap and tried to ignore how cold and wet his arse was. 

“So why do you feel so numb.”

“I’m empty.”  She whispered.

“Oh I don’t think so.  I’ve just seen you weep out so many tears and so many emotions... I think you’re full.  Full of too much… pain.”  He said carefully.

“Just leave me alone.”

“Can’t.”  She gave him a dirty look.  “It looked very much to me like you were going to crawl into that river.  That might have killed you.”  He spoke gently.  “So I can’t leave here until I know you’re safe.” 

“I’m fine.”  She said bitterly. 

“Was it an individual thing that made you feel this way?”

“I said I’m fine.” 

“Or perhaps a series of things.”

“I’m fine!”  He saw her anger flare. 

“A series of things.”  He ascertained. 

“Ok fine!”  She snapped, “stupid little slut Chloe, got herself raped.”  The words spat from her mouth in a vitriolic torrent.  “She got herself raped dozens of times over just a couple of days… but that stupid bitch didn’t really keep track of the time so it could it could have been weeks for all she knows.  What an utter cunt that Chloe is.”  She snapped, “And then the one person.  The ONE person that came to save her from it… She betrayed that person.”  She looked away, “She broke that person’s heart.  Because you know, that’s what slags do.  You can’t trust ‘em.”  She shrugged angrily in an attempt to show she didn’t care anymore, “so now that stupid little cunt is all alone.”  She turned to look at him, “just like she deserves.”  She turned away, bitter bile raising in her throat.

“You’re not alone.”  He said truthfully.  “I’m here.”  They sat in silence for a long time. 

“Why would I do that to Rae?” 

“Trauma can make us do some very strange things.”  He said gently. 

“All I want is for Rae to be here.  And she’ll never forgive me!”  Chloe cried bitterly.  And Kester sucked his teeth thoughtfully as he waited for her to calm a little. 

“I suggest you wait a few days for things to settle and you try talking to her.” 

“What would be the point?”  She asked miserably.

“The point is that this friendship matters to you.  So you must try to heal it.  And that will take a lot of time and effort.”  Kester said gently.  “So you need to be at your best to do that.  You need to rest and take care of yourself.  And perhaps talk to someone about the things that have happened.”  He prodded. 

“I don’t need a therapist.”  She shook her head.

“Ok.  Well maybe you just need to have a more regular chat with a stranger?”  Chloe watched the river lazily sweeping by.

“Is there any chance she‘ll forgive me?” 

“There’s always a chance.  But never a guarantee.”  Kester answered frankly. 

“I’d like to try.”  She turned to him.  He nodded and stood up, offering him her hand.

“Let’s get you out of this cold.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Undone (The Sweater Song) by Weezer _

 

When Finn and Gary finally returned, Finn was cranky that it had taken nearly 2 hours.  But Janice and Rae were giggling about something, that neither of them were willing to divulge, and everything seemed fine, so his mood quickly lifted, from cranky protectiveness to just overprotectiveness. 

“Right let’s get your old bed down, then we can take the new one up.”  Gary grinned after a few minutes of looking everywhere but Finn kissing Rae and holding her protectively, asking her if everything was alright, Rae laughing and soothing him. 

Finn bounded up the stairs.  Gary followed with Rae and Janice in tow; Janice carrying the bag of new sheets they’d had to buy.  Finn reefed the sheets off the mattress and started to lift it away before Gary even got to the room. 

“Steady on!”  He chuckled as he started to help.  “What happened here?”  He noticed the blood stain on the mattress and Finn shrugged.

“Cut myself.”  He mumbled.  Gary looked at the stain and opened his mouth to question that.

“Boys cut themselves.  Shit happens.”  Janice stopped him.  She gave a sly glance to Rae, who blushed slightly and thanked her silently.  Gary saw the exchange.

“Oh.”  He realised.  “Oh right.”  Finn and Janice rolled their eyes as Rae’s blush deepened.  “Well yes.  Boys can be pretty clumsy.”  He grinned conspiratorially.

“Yes.”  Janice agreed, unimpressed.  She moved out of the way so that they could get the mattress downstairs.  Once the mattress had cleared the room she looked down through the slats of the bedframe to what was once under his bed.  “Finn?”  She called out.  “Is there anything under your bed?”  Rae came up to Janice and looked down at what she was looking at. 

“Nope.”  He called back.

“You sure?”  Rae called shaking her head at the small pile of porno mags, a browned banana peel, a few wadded up tissues and three odd socks. 

“I don’t think so.”  He called back as he headed down the stairs with the mattress, banging his hand painfully on the wall.

“Well I guess he hasn’t looked at these in a while then.”  Janice said picking one of the pornographic magazines up. 

“Juggs?”  Rae asked incredulously picking up another one.  Janice started to laugh as she held up hers.

“Juggs!”  She agreed.  There was a picture of a thin woman with enormous breasts on the cover.  “They can’t be real!”  Janice scoffed.  Rae pulled an amused face and opened up the magazine.  The next picture was of a fairly Rubenesque woman with large breasts. 

“Bloody hell!”  Rae laughed as she flipped through the pages.

“Oh she’s good looking!”  Janice pointed out one of the models as Rae flicked through the magazine.  “There’s so many different types of women!”  She said excitedly.  “Such good close ups of vaginas!”  She looked closely at a picture, “I wonder if he wants these anymore?’  she mused,” I could definitely paint most of these girls!”  She said with a grin, “there‘s never enough nude models for painters.”  She explained and tilted her heard to look at another picture.

“Oh fuck!”  They heard from downstairs.

“Ah, he’s remembered.”  Janice chuckled, and Rae started to laugh in earnest as she heard Finn crashing back up the stairs.  He stopped in the doorway, his mouth open, his eyes travelling from the pile of magazines to Janice and Rae, each with an open copy of Juggs magazine in their hands.

“They’re Chop’s.”  He explained hurriedly, obviously lying. 

“What are you lying for?”  Janice waved off his lie, “every boy’s got a pornography collection.”  Finn started to shake his head and turned his eyes to Rae.  He screwed up his face in embarrassed concern as he saw Rae open the centre fold up. 

“Wow.”  She exclaimed and Finn sucked his bottom lip and tried to look less awkward as they laughed merrily.

“That is a beautiful vagina.”  Janice said in awe.

“Um… so I might just…”  He walked over to the pile and his eyes fell to the wadded up tissues, the blush in is cheeks deepened.  He picked up the magazines and turned to Janice and Rae expectantly.  “I might just put these in the bin.”  He reached his hand out for the magazines they held.

“Can I have them?”  Janice asked and she started to go through the magazines in his arms, “are they all Juggs?”  Finn looked at the ceiling, his mouth a tight line and Rae took pity on him. 

“You can keep them if you want.”  She said softly and Janice picked up another magazine and flicked straight to the centrefold.

“No.”  He turned his eyes to her, “I haven‘t looked at them in ages.  I totally forget about them… obviously.”  Gary wandered in the room ready to get the bedframe out and saw Finn, a pile of porno mags in his arms, looking earnestly, embarrassed at Rae who held a copy of Juggs magazine, Janice staring at a centrefold in amazement.

“They’re mine.”  He said suddenly, looking at Rae.  And then he looked at Janice, “I mean they’re not.”  He hesitated, “they’re a friend of mine’s.  Is what I meant to say.”  He said with an awkward gesture of his hands.  “Not sure how they got in here.”  He continued lying.  “I’ll just take those to the bin.”  He gave Finn a look and started to take a pile.

“Can I have them?”  Janice asked excitedly.  Gary’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Um… ok?”  He said and Janice took the pile.

“Do you want that one Rae?”  She asked looking at the edition in Rae’s hand.

“Oh no that’s fine.”  Rae put it on Janice’s pile and Janice grinned happily as she left Finn’s room to put the magazines in her own room.

“Why does she want them?”  Gary breathed softly.

“Lesbian.”  Rae teased him and saw his eyebrows furrow as he looked out of the room after Janice.

“Oh.’  He sounded disappointed and she started to laugh.

“For art Gary!”  She said as if it were obvious, “she wants to paint the ladies.” 

“Oh of course!”  He said happier.  And Rae now knew what Janice was yet to see.  Finn was too busy staring at the wall, his face burning in shame, to have really taken in much of that exchange.  Rae went over to him and touched his hand.

“I’m sorry.”  He said fiercely. 

“Don’t be sorry!”  She answered softly. 

“Cup of tea?”  Gary asked and left the room without waiting for a response, taking Janice with him as she left her room. 

“You shouldn’t o’ had to see that.”  He sat on the bedframe and looked up at her. 

“I don’t mind.”  She stood in front of him and he leaned his head on her stomach, wrapping his hands around her legs, his hands going to her arse. 

“I do.”

“Yeah well, now I know why you like boobs so much.”  She teased and he couldn’t help but grin at her.

“I always liked tits.”  He said, “Even afore I got me hands on them magazines.”  He reached up and squeezed her breasts firmly a very satisfied grin on his face as he moulded them to his hands expertly.

“Pleased with yourself?”  She said with an amused smirk.

“Aye.”  He said lustily, “very.”  He kept massaging her breasts firmly as she spoke.

“Janice noticed that there were lots of different body types in them.”  She smiled; the porno mags oddly putting her at ease, but he shrugged and made himself leave her tits alone; they were getting far too distracting.

“I always liked lots o’ different body types.”  He shrugged again, self-consciously, “Chop always wanted Penthouse and Playboy, but they was a bit boring, all the girls looked the same.”  His hands ran down the back of her thighs to her shins and back up, “I mean there’s nothing wrong with the way those girls look, I liked that too, it’s just… I liked lots of different things.”  He looked up at her, “now I only like one type of body.”  His hands travelled up her back as far as her could reach, “yours.” 

“I know.”  She answered; 90% believing him.  He smiled as if she had said the most important thing in the world to him.

“Yeah?”  He asked, excited.  She nodded.

“You’ve done a pretty good job of making that clear.”  She leaned down and kissed him gently and his hands went to her face instantly.  She straightened up and he hugged her to him, his head happily resting on her stomach.

“So you’re not upset about them?”  She shook her head, still grinning at him. 

“I might have been upset if they was all Playboys though.”  She said honestly.

“I think I do have one in here somewhere.”  He said thoughtfully and looked over at his desks.  “They weren’t me favourite, but sometimes if that’s all you can get…” He said as he looked back up at her, “then that’s what you do.”  He kissed her stomach.  “I think I have’ta go through me room and get rid of some crap.”

“Me too.”  She sympathised.

“Aye, but I bet you don’t have any dirty magazines to embarrass you.”

“I got a pretty dirty book.”

“Oh yeah?”  He asked with a cheeky glint in his eye.

“It’s called ‘Caesar’s Last Love.’ ”  Finn raised his eyebrows sceptically.

“It don’t sound that dirty.”  Rae sat on the bedframe beside him.

“Oh right, well it’s no Juggs magazine…”

“Alright!”

“But… there is a particular scene with Caesar’s wife and a centurion that…” She shrugged, trying to suggest it to him rather than say it.  She had started to tell him this to help him feel less embarrassed.  Now she felt butterflies in her stomach thinking about that first time she’d masturbated and what had happened in her fantasies. 

“Oh yeah, you rub one out to it?”  He asked with a sly grin.  “You gonna let me watch you masturbate?”  He kissed her neck as they heard Gary and Janice slowly coming back up the stairs. 

“I did ‘rub one out’ to it.”  She said cheekily, her face close to his, their lips nearly touching.  “A little after you told me to go kick Archie’s arse, you remember?”

“I do.”

“It was the first time I masturbated.”

“Oh right?”  He asked surprised.  Intently interested in this story. 

“It was the first time I ever had an orgasm.”  She heard him sharply intake his breath.

“Is that right?”  His voice was husky with desire.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“I need to read this book.”

“I were fantasising.”  She whispered, keeping her eyes on the hallway.

“About the centurion?”  He watched her nod and smiled. 

_This is so sexy._

_Thinking about Rae masturbating is so fucking sexy._

“And I was Caesar’s wife.”  She whispered as Gary and Janice approached, “And you were the centurion.”  He looked up at her with wonder, wanting to ask more, but Gary and Janice were there, with cups of tea for everyone. 

“What?”  He asked softly, taken aback, incredibly horny, wanting to be inside her so much.

“You heard.”  She turned to Janice.  “Which one’s mine?”  Janice held out a mug for her and she gladly took it.  Finn’s awestruck face didn’t leave hers.

“Here’s yours!”  Gary said and Finn had to tear his eyes away and try to act normally.  They drunk their tea while Gary told them the tale of how they’d brought the bed in painstaking detail, clearly trying to take everyone’s minds off the porno magazines.  Finn’s eyes kept returning to Rae’s face hungrily.  He was already itching to be inside of her.  It had been so long since they’d had sex, but now he thought he’d burst the seams of his jeans he was throbbing so hard. 

_She masturbated about me._

_Way back, too._

_Long before I knew I liked her._

_The first time she did it._

_And it were me in her mind._

_She masturbated… thinking about me… before we was together… the first time she did it…_

_Oh my god._

_Rae masturbating._

_Oomph…_

He thought about the way she looked when he’d seen her putting her hand down her pants at her place when he’d been looking in the window, just before he tapped it. 

He tried to imagine her first time.  The first time she’d touched herself.

_Steady Finn._

He warned himself.

_Oh god… the first time she touched herself._

He imagined what she’d look like naked, her fingers caressing herself, exploring, experimenting for the first time, her mind thinking about him… back before they were together.  Back when she’d never orgasmed before. 

_Oh fuck that is so unbelievably sexy._

And then a sudden thought came to him.

_I kinda gave her, her first orgasm._

_I was the first guy she fantasised about having sex with._

_She…_

_Holy fuck._

_I have to have her.  Now._

He looked over at the way she was smiling.

_She knows what this is doing to me._

_That saucy minx._

_Fuck I love her._

_I want her so bad._

_I can’t believe I were her first real sexual fantasy._

_I were her first!_

He suddenly noticed that there was silence.

“What?”  He asked, realising he’d been asked a question.

“Are you alright?”  Janice asked, “You’re looking a little peaked.” 

“I’m fine.”  He answered absent-mindedly.  “Let’s get the bedframe out.”  He stood up, casually angling himself away from everyone and bending to pick up the bed frame, quickly covering his groin with the upturned bed. 

As soon as they left the room, Janice turned to Rae.

“What were you saying to him when we came back up?

“Nothing, why?”

“I need to know whatever that move was, so I can use it!”  She said seriously, a look of awe on her face.  Rae blushed.

“I don’t think you can use that particular move.”  Rae said carefully.

“Oh right?”  Janice chuckled. 

They brought the new bed frame up with them and left it in the hallway and Finn came back in and moved his bedside table. 

Once the new bed was finally in place Gary and Janice headed downstairs and Rae started to make the bed, but Finn stopped her firmly and made it himself. 

“I can do it!”  She laughed but he shook his head resolutely. 

“I told you.”  He said firmly, “I don’t care what doctors say.  You’re bleeding.  That’s draining.  Sit down.  Rest.”  She shook her head at him and sat down to go through her bag of clothes, knowing there was no point in arguing with him.  There would be no convincing him, and since she really did have horrible cramps today, she wasn’t going to complain.  She pulled out her pill and took today’s, guiltily, figuring that since she was on her period, it didn’t matter that she’d skipped a few. 

When he was done making the bed, he turned some music on and sat on the bed, inviting her to come and try it out, with a grin.  She put her pills on the bedside table and then sat next to him and twined her fingers in his.  He looked down at her hand and ran his fingers along her red nails.

“I like your nails.” 

“They’re too short for nail polish.”  She shook her head.

“No they’re not.”  He smiled fondly, “they’re perfect.”  And he looked up at her face with a very serious look on his face, “and if they was any longer, you’d probably claw through to me lungs.”  He ended with a slight twist of his mouth.  She tapped his arm in mock protest. 

“I like your new bed.”  She changed the topic. 

“Our bed.”  He corrected.  She smiled, absurdly pleased with what he said.

“At least there’s no blood on the mattress.”  She mused.

“You got plenty o’ time for that.”  She narrowed her eyes at him.  “What?  I want you to!”  He laughed.  “You know, marking your territory.”  He made that joke again and she couldn’t even feign being angry at him when he grinned like that.  “Although, I’d prefer it if it’s not too much blood.  It scares me a little, how much you’re bleeding.”

“It’s fine.  Women do this stuff all the time.”

“Women are definitely tougher than men.”  He nodded his head earnestly.  “I’d probably weep like a baby if I bled for 5 days!”

“Does period talk count as serious stuff?”  Rae asked.

“I dunno.”  Finn furrowed his face in thought. 

“Cos there’ll be none of that today!”  She ordered with a grin.

“Alright.  What do you wanna talk about?”  Rae laid down in the bed considering his question.

“Oh this is a good bed.”  He laid beside her, slightly leaning over her, stroking her hair and watching her face as she settled into the bed.

“I chose alright then?”  She nodded and closed her eyes.  “Rae?”  He asked softly, but with a twinge of urgency.  She made a noise to say that she’d heard him “was I really your first…”  He paused, “orgasm.”  She opened her eyes and looked at his ridiculously pleased face. 

“Yes.  In more ways than one.” 

“You what?”  He asked seriously.

“You know…”  She willed him to just get it.  “You were my centurion… and you were the first guy I came with...  you know… with…”  She saw him understand what she meant and saw a proud, satisfied look cross his face.  She tried to not feel embarrassed by what she’d told him, especially since it seemed to please him so much.  She saw that look coming into his eyes.  That look that said he was thinking that he loved her.  It was coloured with lust as well, and she liked the way it made him look at her. 

“What are you thinking?”  She asked, trying to get him to pick up where he left off this morning.  Trying to get him to say it.  To say ‘I love you.’

“I want you so badly right now.”  He kissed her lips and slowly climbed between her legs.  His hands explored her body, slowly creeping towards her underpants. 

He intended to creep his fingers forward until he felt the pad and then stop.  But he didn’t feel it.

“Are you off it already?”  He asked excitedly, he kissed her with a ferocity that Rae could barely match.  He had his pants off before she could catch her breath and his hands were unbuttoning her top, shaking and eager. 

“No.  Finn… No I’m wearing a tampon.”  She said in between his kisses.  She saw a slow recognition of that word creep into his mind.

“Fuck.”  He groaned with real pain.  He lowered his face to her neck, smelling her intoxicating scent and groaned again as he kissed her neck.  She could feel his hard cock throbbing through his boxers, pressing against her cunt through her knickers.  He kissed her, grinding his hips into her, their clothed bodies rubbing against each other achingly close, but so far away.  He sighed and sat up onto his knees, still between her thighs.

“I have to stop.”  He shook his head. 

“Come here.”  She motioned to him.

“You what?”

“Bring that cock to my mouth.  Now.”  He grinned and took his boxers off before carefully crawling up her body, holding onto the bedhead he positioned himself kneeling over her chest and face.  He looked down as she licked up the length of his cock and he groaned agonisingly; knowing this could go nowhere. 

“That is a nice view.”  He said as she took his cock into her mouth and gently sucked on the head, her tongue swirling around the tip. 

“Fuck my mouth.”  She whispered raggedly to him and he groaned again. 

“You’ll be the fucking death of me, girl.”  He whispered frantically before thrusting into her mouth, one hand on the bed head, the other finding her hair.  He moaned in pleasure as he pushed his cock as far down her throat as he could from this angle, and loved the look in her eyes as she watched him moving above her. 

“No.  I gotta stop... I gotta stop.”  He said as he kept going.  “I gotta stop.”  He slowed down, thrusting his cock in as deep as he could one more time before withdrawing.  “I can’t cum if you can’t cum.”  He said resolutely, sounding as if it were causing him physical pain.  He crawled backwards, his cock rubbing up against her tits.  He pushed them together around his cock and groaned loudly.  He thrust, at first gently, but then speeding up a little; fucking her tits. 

“Fuck.”  He said and stopped abruptly and climbed off her suddenly.  He sat beside her.

“Finn?”

“Just give me a minute.”  He said with a strained voice.  “Don’t touch me just yet…”  He said gently as he saw her hand rise.  “I’ll probably cum if you touch me.”  He barely breathed the words.  She put her hand down and he closed his eyes and started counting times tables. 

 

 

***

 

 

_Dear Diary_

_The peaceful Sunday we had planned became an exercise in torturing Finn.  And me._

_It were brilliant._

_We ended up naked, rubbing ourselves against each other.  Him having to stop and sometimes not touch me for a minute because he refused to cum._

_I sucked his cock so much, and one time he pulled my hair hard to stop me from moving because he was so close to coming.  I liked it._

_After a while he groaned that his balls and his whole body was fucking aching in actual pain from wanting it so badly._

_I told him I ached for him too._

_We decided we should stop after that.  But even then, we talked about music and we couldn’t stop touching each other, and we’d end up making out mid-sentence._

_Oh god I’m so horny._

_I thought I were horny before I‘d had sex or had an orgasm.  I thought I knew what it was like to really ache for a shag.  But I had no idea._

_It’s actually torture._

_I’ve never needed it like I do now._

_I’m gagging for it.  God!_

_Fucking period.  Still at least another 3 fucking days!_

_ARGH!_

_He had that look in his eyes again.  Diary, I really hope I’m right about what that look means._

_Sorry diary.  Had to stop, Finn related kissing adventure!_

_Dinner with his dad and Janice cooled things down a bit, but even as he ate he had his hand on my thigh.  Oh god where he touches me burns with desire._

_Think about something else Rae!_

_I didn’t even ache for him this much when we had our first kiss and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to be hornier than then._

_GAH!_

_Hm.  Thinking of first kiss, I was sure it were me that pulled away, not him.  Funny how we see things so differently._

_I am starting to see more and more that people perceive things differently._

_I wonder if the first time we had sex were as good for him as it were for me?_

_I think it probably was._

_I can’t stop grinning._

_Oh… Finn…_

_Sorry.  Had to stop again._

_I keep thinking about the differences between Chloe’s diary and mine._

_The differences between her explanation of what happened in Sutherland and Finn’s._

_I believe Finn of course.  But what Chloe says has me really thinking._

_Why would she say that?_

 

 

_ ‘Big Love’ by Fleetwood Mac _

 

“I don’t know what to sing.”  He said as he wiped his palms on the back of his jeans as inconspicuously as he could. 

“Your favourite song.”  Mr Roach answered without looking up.  Elsa screwed up her face in sympathy, she was sitting off prompt in the wings and watching the auditions with a critical eye. 

Auditions were always brutal.  But Mr Ken Roach seemed to be going out of his way to be cruel to the acting kids in the course. 

Music, dance and performing arts (acting) students from both years 1 & 2 were all to audition for the end of school year play.  Since Elsa was the main director of the play, she’d left the auditioning process to Mr Roach, the music teacher.  Now everyone had to act and sing at the audition, and if they could play an instrument they had to do that too, and if they danced, an impromptu dance was required. 

If Elsa had had any idea of how brutal Mr Roach was going to make the auditions she would have stepped in.  Now it was too late, because he had already done auditions for all the students that took only music or dance and did not do the acting strand of the course – that was over half of them – while she has been busy elsewhere.  It was unfair to change it now. 

Everyone was in there.  He’d made them audition in front of everyone.

Students had been auditioned in pairs.  The pairs that they had gotten into last week were being used for the performing arts students.  For everyone else, Mr Roach paired them up, generally in boy / girl pairs. 

Finn looked up into the poor excuse for stage lights the school had, thinking.

“Sing Rae’s favourite song.”  Elsa prompted gently, no one hearing her but Finn.  He nodded gratefully and cleared his throat.  He started to sing a decent rendition of ‘Wonderwall’.  Rae felt herself grinning stupidly as she watched him, sympathetic to his plight.  She’d have to get up their soon. 

Chloe sat with Archie on the other side of room, near the door.  Chloe’s eyes kept straying to Rae.  This was the first time she’d seen Rae since she’d told her about the kiss.  She’d come in a little late, when everyone was walking around to get into their pairs; Stacey had refused to get up so Finn had been forced to walk over to her; she had seen Finn approaching Stacey, watched him sit down looking agitated.  But Chloe didn’t know if Rae and Finn were still together; she hadn’t seen them together yet.  Rae was sitting with that Phillip guy.  He was leaning in towards her, commenting occasionally.

He so obviously fancied her. 

Finn and Stacey had been the first of the performing arts kids to go up. 

“What did I miss?”  Jenny, the dance teacher, rushed up beside Elsa, coming in from the backstage entrance.  She’d had to take her daughter home sick and wait there until her husband got home to take care of her. 

“Ken being a bit of sadist.”  Elsa replied.  Jenny peaked around the wing curtains to see Finn, shaking and nervously singing.

“Oh god.”  She tutted.  “I never understood why he taught kids when he hates them so much.”

“He only hates the ones that don’t do music.”  Elsa shook her head, knowing she’d have to do some confidence building with her kids after this.

“That’s true.”  Jenny sighed.  “Has he already grilled my kids?” 

“I’m afraid so.”

“Shit.”  She tutted.

Finn finished singing and Mr Roach sighed.

“I don’t understand why you left music Finn.”  He said sternly.  “You’re wasted in anything else.”  Finn didn’t reply, just grabbed his elbow, crossing one arm across his upper stomach.

“Poor kid.”  Jenny whispered. 

“Now from what I understand there will be a kiss written into this play?”  Ken Roach looked down at his notes, “The two lead characters will kiss?  Lead roles will go only to performing arts students, so you will have the most rigorous acting auditions.”  He said with relish, genuinely seeming to enjoy torturing Finn; having taken personal slight to him dropping music.  “So let’s see a stage kiss you two.”  He waved his hand at them and looked back down at his papers.

“No.”  Finn said at the same time as Stacey said;

“Ok.”  She turned and looked at Finn, “it’s just acting Finn.  All actors kiss on the big screen.”

“No.”  He repeated.

Rae felt her heart hammering.  Izzy, sitting next to her, took her hand gently, understanding the gravity of the situation. 

“Oh fuck.”  Elsa sighed, and stood up, she popped he head around the wings curtains. 

“We’re not sure if there will be a kiss, Ken.”

“But the notes…”

“Yes well, we’ll be discussing it with the students who get the parts.”

“But don’t we need to see if there’s any chemistry before we assign parts?”  He sounded confused.

“Anyone can have chemistry Ken, it’s called acting.  I’ll teach them that.  It’s my job.”

“I’m still confused as to why we need to discuss this at all?”

“To determine the student’s comfort levels.”  Elsa said pleasantly, but Finn could feel her frustration rising. 

“But actors do this kind of thing all the time.”  He answered dismissively.

“Exactly.”  Stacey interjected, stepping closer to Finn.

“Yes, _paid_ actors do.”  Elsa said meaningfully, “And even then they have boundaries.”

“I don’t mind.”  Stacey shrugged, taking another step.

“Well I do.”  Finn answered stepping back, his arm still crossed across his chest.

“Nonsense!”  Ken replied, “No young man has a problem with a pretty girl kissing him!” 

Stacey took this as her cue to grab Finn’s face and kiss his lips.  Instantly Finn pushed her away.

“Don’t!”  He said angrily, wiping his mouth and searching out Rae in the audience, but unable to see her due to the lights.  “Fucking hell.”  He said angrily. 

“That’s enough!”  Elsa snapped.  “We respect each other’s boundaries in this room.  In this school.”  She said, her anger almost brimming over.  “Stacey, please head to my office.”  She said softly.  And Stacey rolled her eyes and left the stage shaking her head.  “Finn, I’ll see you backstage.”  She said softly but he lingered on the stage still wiping his mouth, wanting to see Rae. 

“House lights please.”  Elsa used the theatre language, even though this was just a school hall stage.  Someone put the lights on. 

Finn finally saw Rae.  Izzy holding her hand, Phillip leaning in close to her, his upper body touching her arm, he was whispering something in her ear.  She smiled tightly, and turned to look at him and shook her head, said a few words and turned back to look at the stage, her eyes on Finn.  She looked concerned not angry.  That eased his tension.  But the wistful look of love on Phillip’s face as she turned away, the way he stared at the side of her face longingly for a moment, the way he leaned in closer and glanced at Rae’s breasts, looked up at her face, saw that she was looking at Finn, and then looked back down at them blatantly; sexual desire clear on his face.  Finn felt vitriol rising in his chest.  She hadn’t seen the way he was looking at her.  But he had.  Elsa looked up at him expectantly and cleared her throat.  He nodded, and turned, leaving the stage, looking over his shoulder one last time.  Phillip was still looking at her breasts.  She waited for him to go and then sat on the edge of the stage. 

“There may be a stage kiss between the lead male and the lead female in this play.”  Elsa’s eyes scanned the audience and saw Rae and Phillip.  “Rae and Phillip are doing most of the writing, and Phillip is very keen for the romance to develop to that stage.”  Elsa explained to the whole class.  “However, we will discuss that with the students who get those roles.  And if they are uncomfortable with it, we will not put it in.  Ok?”  She saw everyone nodding their heads, Ken Roach screwing his face up in confusion. 

“Alright take 15 minutes people.  Pull it together.”  She said sternly.  “And we’ll start up the auditions again afterwards, ok?”  She looked over at Archie and Chloe, “we’ll start with you two.”  She pointed at them and Archie nodded.  Chloe smiled grimly.  “Go get a drink of water.”  She told them all, but she caught Rae’s eye and motioned for her to come over as everyone else dispersed.  Elsa got up and went backstage. 

“Why is Ken allowed around students when he appears to be senile?”  Jenny said to Elsa and then saw Rae, “oh shit.  You didn’t hear that ok?”

“Hear what?”  Rae said softly, eliciting a smile from Jenny.

“Can you go make sure the students aren’t saying anything too terrible about Stacey or Finn?”  Elsa said and Jenny nodded her head. “Thanks!”  Elsa motioned for Rae to follow her backstage.  Finn was sitting on a pile of scenery flats, smoking and looking pissed off and worried. 

“Smoking?  Really?  At school…”  Elsa asked.  “Put it out.”  Finn obliged after another draw on it.  He looked up and saw Rae.

“I’m sorry.”  He instantly said, “I didn’t mean for it-”

“Why the hell are you sorry?”  Elsa asked.  “I’m sorry.  I should have stomped on that situation harder and sooner.  And I am sorry that this happened to you.”  Elsa motioned for Rae to move in closer to Finn.  “Are you ok Finn?”  She asked him seriously. 

“What?”  He looked confused, “Yeah I’m worried about Rae.”  He turned his eyes to her.

“I think you need to worry about yourself more, sometimes.  You were just kissed against your will.”  He looked up at her and shrugged uncomfortably.  “Imagine if that had happened to Rae.”  She said meaningfully and Finn looked down at his hands. Furrowing his brow.  “That was a serious incident that is not lessened because you’re a boy and she’s a girl.  Are you alright?” 

Finn shrugged uncomfortably.

“That kind of stuff happens all the time tough.”  He mumbled.  “To everyone.”  He furrowed his brows, “I’ve done it.”

“You explicitly told her that you did not want it to happen.  That’s different to taking the initiative to kiss first.  I am sure that you have not done to someone else what was just done to you.”  Elsa prodded gently.  “You are allowed to feel violated.” 

“How do you feel?”  Rae asked and sat down next him.

“Pissed off.”  He turned, “worried about you.”  He shrugged.  Elsa looked at her watch. 

“10 minutes, you two.”  She said, “Do not be late.”  She started to walk away, “and if either of you need to talk about this, you know where my office is.”  She headed toward her office, thinking about what best to say to Stacey.  “And get off my flats!”  She closed the backstage door behind her.  They got off the flats and sat on the bench nearby; one of those low slung cold metal things. 

Rae turned to Finn, his face was screwed up in thought.

“Are you alright?’  She asked.

“Are you?”  His hand went up to her face, “I’m so sorry.”

“What for?”  Rae shook her head, “I saw what happened.”

“But I said that I was planning on that not happening again.” 

“It’s not your fault that Stacey is a nutbag, ok?”  She shook her head.  “Look, what Elsa said… she’s right.”

“No.”  Finn shook his head and looked down at his fingers, “It’s different cos I’m a boy.”

“Why?”

“It just is.”  He shrugged uncomfortably.  “I should have been firmer, you know?  Had control of the situation.”

“From what I saw you were pretty clear Finn.”

“Do you forgive me?”

“There is literally nothing to forgive.  Why would you think there is?”

“I dunno.”  He shook his head, “cos her lips touched mine.”  He looked up to her, “it happened again.”

“Still not your fault.”  Rae said with a worried look. 

“So you’re alright?”

“Yes.  I’m fine.  You haven’t said if you‘re alright?”

“Of course I am.”  He smiled, “can I kiss you?”

“Did you wipe all the Stacey off?”  She asked with a grin and kissed him before he had chance to answer. 

 

 

When the class reconvened, Archie and Chloe were talking softly on the stage, trying to prepare for their audition.  Finn sat next to Rae, Phillip on the other side, trying to act as if Finn were not there, he leaned in and started to speak to Rae again. 

“Hi Will.  Got a girlfriend?”  Finn stopped Phillip from saying a word to Rae.  He didn’t even look at Phillip.

“Um no.”  He answered softly, taken aback.

“You should go get one.”  Finn replied, “I hear Stacey’s single.” 

“No… no I don’t want to-”

“Got a crush on anyone?”  Finn turned his eyes to Phillip, a meaningful and dangerous look on his face.  Rae sighed and stared at the ceiling. 

“Um.”  Phillip stuttered, “um…” He swallowed hard, “I s’pose.”  But a look of anger was starting to enter his eyes.

“Oh yeah?”  Finn smiled with a hint of menace, “anyone I know?” 

“Alright.”  Rae said softly to him, but Finn ignored her and watched Phillip fidget. 

“Maybe.”  He said eventually, more defiant than usual.

“Oh I bet I know her quite well.”  He leaned forward, his face coming to within inches of Phillip’s, Rae leaning back to get out of his way.  There was no point arguing with him.  Jealous Finn could not be reasoned with.  “Better than you can ever hope to know her.”  Phillip leaned away from Finn and Rae.  “I see you understand me clearly.”  His voice was edged with clear violence and Phillip nodded his head.  “Good boy.”  Finn smiled aggressively.  He sat back up and rested his hand high on Rae’s thigh, possessive, making it clear that she was his.  Rae inwardly shook her head, but outwardly made no move, she gave an apologetic smile to Phillip who shook his head in response and then turned to Finn, who was resolutely looking ahead, at the stage.  He wasn’t going to discuss this it seemed. 

“Alright, settle down.”  Mr Roach said, Elsa was sitting next to him now, and his face was slightly red.  Jenny was in the wings watching. 

Archie and Chloe did their 15 minute audition without a hitch.  Rae got lost in the performance, her mind quickly letting go of Finn’s jealousy. 

“Archie sings beautifully.”  Rae said with a smile.

“Aye.”  Finn nodded, “I hope that means he’ll get the lead.”  He pulled a face and Rae grinned. 

“You didn’t finish your audition, you didn’t do any script work.” 

“I’ll survive.”  He shook his head.

“You hate this class don’t you?”  She whispered as Mr Roach turned to look in their direction.  He nodded his head slowly, a sly grin on his face.

“But I were hoping to hang out with you.  That would have made it bearable.  But…”

“You got Stacey instead.”  He nodded in reply.

“Why are you taking it?”  He wondered, he knew she hated performing. 

“Oh I love theatre.”  She answered honestly, “Hate performing.  Love theatre.”  She shrugged.

“Born to be a playwright.”  He grinned and saw Philip glaring at him.  Finn ignored him. 

“I dunno.  I’ve been getting excited about directing.”  She grinned with a hint of trepidation. 

When Chloe and Archie had finished, Archie came and sat over with them, Phillip shifting uncomfortably again.  Chloe hesitated, Rae was refusing to look at her, but she saw Finn’s hand on her leg and felt a deep sense of relief.  Archie motioned for her to come over. 

He’d heard all about what happened from Rae this morning, Finn standing beside her scuffing the ground, his eyes downcast.  He had already heard Chloe’s side, of course, and he was refusing to take sides. 

He had agreed wholeheartedly with Rae that what Chloe had done was wrong, but he reminded them both that Chloe was a rape victim, he had said to them that going through stuff like that does stuff to a person.  He’d asked them both to try and understand that she was an emotional mess.  He’d told them he wouldn’t take sides.  Chloe was his friend as much as they were.  Finn had shrugged.

“Wherever Rae goes I go.”  He said in response to what Archie had said and Archie understood that.  It was up to Rae now.  And Rae was still angry, still hurt and confused, still wondering why Chloe would do that. 

Chloe sat meekly next to Archie, angled away from Finn and Rae, her eyes on the ground.  Rae looked over at her dejected and withdrawn form and her eyebrows furrowed.  Finn didn’t look at Chloe at all.  He already knew that Rae would forgive Chloe, it was just a matter of how long it took.  And he too would then forgive her.  But he had already decided that he would avoid being alone with her.  That he would avoid any situation that might give her hope, or cause to wonder if maybe there was a chance.  For Finn, their friendship was forever changed.  He would forever be on his guard around her now. 

Rae and Phillip were up next.  Rae sang first, feeling more confident with her voice than her acting.

“My word, you have a lovely voice!”  Mr Roach said, “Quite enchanting.  You should do music.”  Rae blushed and smiled.  Phillip was passable, but not as good as Finn or Archie. 

“Script work.”  Elsa prompted them.  They could do a duologue or a monologue each; they had found this out last week.  Rae had decided monologues and she went first to get it over and done with.  She had picked something from ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead’ and as she started, Phillip smiled triumphantly.  Finn didn’t notice, he was so enamoured with Rae’s singing voice that he was grinning like an idiot, staring at her like a lovesick schoolboy.  As she started her monologue, shaking, nervous and uncomfortable, he listened carefully, trying to understand the thread, the meaning of the piece.  As she came to the end of the piece, she was much more confident, she didn’t look down at the script at all and she moved naturally on the stage.

“Ask yourself: if I asked you straight off - I'm going to stuff you in this box now – would you rather to be alive or dead?  Naturally you’d prefer to be alive.  Life in a box is better than no life at all.  I expect.  You'd have a chance at least.  You could lie there thinking, well, at least I’m not dead.  In a minute, somebody’s going to bang on the lid and tell me to come out.”  She finished her monologue with an enigmatic smile and Finn clapped loudly when the class gave her the expected applause. 

Phillip’s turn was next.  He had chosen Shakespeare, of course.  A sonnet. 

“Being your slave, what should I do but tend upon the hours and times of your desire?  I have no precious time at all to spend, nor services to do, till you require.”  Phillip spoke out to the audience with a loud, confident voice.  Finn’s eyes watched Rae as she hung about the back of the stage, not even really hearing Phillip.  He heard Archie make a slight noise and turned to see Archie looking at him.

“Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you.  Nor think the bitterness of absence sour when you have bid your servant once adieu.”  Phillip continued.

“What?”  Finn asked.

“It’s a love sonnet.”  Archie said softly.  Finn turned his face back to the stage.  Rae’s eyes were on Phillip now; she clearly knew that it was a love sonnet, he could see that she was halfway between enjoying his performance and wondering if it was about her. 

“Nor dare I question with my jealous thought where you may be, or your affairs suppose.  But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought save, where you are how happy you make those.”  Finn found himself listening closely to the words.  “So true a fool is love that in your will, though you do anything, he thinks no ill.”  Phillip finished and the class clapped.  Finn didn’t.  He watched as Phillip reached for Rae, to take her hand, wanting to do a theatrical bow.  He watched her laugh and accept.  Once they had bowed he turned to her and kissed her hand gently.  She smiled tightly, blushing and removed her hand gently.  Finn narrowed his eyes and watched the way Phillip watched Rae leave the stage.  There in front of everyone, he made it obvious he was looking at her.  No one could have missed it.

“Oh shit.”  Archie said softly and looked back over at Finn. 

“Jesus.”  Izzy agreed with Archie. 

“I thought you were going to do an Othello monologue?”  Elsa asked as Phillip walked back through the audience.

“Changed my mind at the last minute.”  He smiled shyly.

“Your mastery of Shakespeare is as impressive as ever Phil!”  She smiled and called up the next pairing. 

“Oh fuck, he did it just to piss Finn off.”  Archie breathed under his breath to Izzy, who nodded her head with big round eyes.  “That took some balls.”  Archie mused. 

Rae sat down next to Finn, Phillip sat beside her.  Finn shot Phillip a glare before putting his hand on her thigh, higher than before and she kissed him on the cheek.

“Still shaking.”  She said nervously. 

“Glad it’s over?”  He asked softly.

“Yeah.  And I won’t have to get back up there – Elsa said I can do direction instead.  Wish I hadn’t had to audition” She pulled a face.  “But you know… auditioning is worth marks, so… gotta do it.”

“You were really good.”  Finn said honestly.

“Yeah.”  Izzy agreed and Archie nodded.  “I reckon it’ll be you and Archie in the leads!”  She grinned and Rae shook her head, but didn’t’ reply because Elsa was looking over at them with her eyebrows raised. 

 

 

After the auditions finished, Elsa asked Archie to run a game of ‘spacejump’ in the remaining 10 minutes before lunch, while she and Mr Roach went over their notes. 

Archie got Izzy to get up. 

“Act out brushing your teeth.”  He ordered and Izzy did with a grin. 

“Spacejump!”  He called and Izzy froze.  Rae jumped up and turned the scene into a boxing match.  The class laughed at the fake sledging Rae gaze Izzy and Izzy’s responses. 

Rae getting up left Phillip and Finn with no one in between them.  Phillip eyed Finn carefully, but Finn was watching Rae with a huge grin.

“Spacejump!”  Izzy and Rae froze, Izzy looking as if she’s just taken a punch from Rae, and Josh got up.  He looked at the scene momentarily, trying to think what that position could be turned into.  He stood next to Rae and took up a similar pose to her.

“With our mighty powers psychic-girl, we can defeat the flaming nemesis!”  He cried, and the scene was now a superhero movie, with Izzy as the villain.  It was hard not to laugh at the ridiculousness of this game as it moved through progressively more absurd scenarios. 

“You know you won’t keep hold of a woman like Rae with ever increasing displays of testosterone induced, caveman like, behaviour.”  Phillip suddenly said.  Finn slowly turned his eyes to him. 

“He speaks.”  Finn said with a bemused, sadistic smile, “you really wanna do this Phillip?”  That derisive pop of the last P.

“Do you really think someone as intellectually inferior as you can keep the interest of one of the smartest girls in this school?  You can’t keep her stimulated.”  Phillip kept his eyes on the game, “And you can beat the crap out of me as much as you want for saying it.  In fact, I’m sure you will; that’s all your type are good at.  But it won’t change the facts.”  Phillip shrugged, “I’m smart enough for her though.”  He smiled, looking sideways at him.  “She is beautiful isn’t she?”  He sighed longingly.  “Enjoy her while you can Quinn.”  He turned to look at Finn.  “Because it’s only a matter of time until she realises that all you’ve got is a pretty face, a clenched fist, and an empty head.”

Finn scoffed contemptuously. 

“You come near her and you’ll learn all about my clenched fist.”  He threatened. 

“Why don’t you just take your dick out and piss everywhere, I hear it’s a more effective way of marking your territory, you fucking Neanderthal.”  Phillip looked disgusted.  “Rae’s not a thing you own.”  He shook his head, “She’s a person who’ll make her own mind up.”  And then Phillip smiled knowingly, “plus you can’t stop me from coming near her; we have to work together.  Writing a play.  Another shared interest we have.”  He leaned in closer to Finn, “turns out I know her pretty good.”  He suddenly jumped up, Archie having called spacejump again and entered the game, denying Finn the chance to reply.  Finn sucked his teeth angrily, thoughtfully.  So shy, scared Phillip actually had a set on him.  Finn watched Rae trying not to laugh, trying to take on the right character as Phillip changed the scene to a pirate ship, and she was the captain.  Naturally.  

Finn tried not to dwell on the things that Phillip had said that were true.  Tried not to notice that as the lesson ended, Phillip reached out and took her hand, laughing and she took it in a friendly gesture, commenting on how good his pirate idea had been.  He narrowed his eyes as they made a plan to share their free period together tomorrow morning, to do a writing session.  Naturally. 

Finn’s eyes followed Phillip as he turned to walk away, smiling politely at him, Rae’s eyes watching them both warily.

“See you round Lynn.”  Phillip said softly, so only Finn could hear, as he passed by.

“You can count on it.”  Finn responded threateningly but equally as quiet.  But Phillip smiled broadly.

“See you Rae.”  He called back to her happily. 

“Bye Phil!”  She said, still talking with Izzy and Archie.  Finn stayed seated, his eyes thoughtful and violent. 

Everyone had forgotten Chloe, sitting silently nearby, trying to be invisible.  She had seen the whole thing.

“He’s wrong.”  She said quietly.  Finn turned his eyes to her but said nothing.  “You’re more than he thinks you are Finn.  Much more.  Don’t believe him; he’s just jealous.”  She lowered her eyes, “and your love for Rae counts for a lot.  A lot more than an interest in playwriting.”  She shrugged.  “Also.  I’m really sorry.  And I’m glad you and Rae are still together.”  Finn barely nodded his head, just once, in response to what she said, not really wanting to acknowledge her, since Rae wasn’t.  She smiled bitterly, as if she had known that would be his response and quietly got up, leaving the hall.  Finn turned his eyes back to Rae, the way she held Archie’s hand now was the way she had held Phillip’s before.  He understood that Phil’s attentions were a one-way affection.  At the moment. 

Stacey walked over to him and he sighed loudly.

“What?”  He said angrily. 

“Elsa said I had to apologise.” 

“Right.  Well… fuck off.”  Finn said with no interest. 

“She also said it were up to you if we could still work together.  If we don’t work together, we forfeit the marks for this component.  She said you won’t mind cos you’re gonna have to repeat anyway.  But I really don’t want to lose the marks.  Please?”  She asked, apparently earnest.  “You know what my parents are like with my grades.”  She whispered urgently.  “Please Finn.”

“Oh fuck.  Alright.”  He rolled his eyes.

“Thank you.”  She said breathily. 

“But keep your fucking mouth to yourself.”

“I’ll behave.”  She grinned saucily.  And he sneered in disgust at her.

“Alright, well we’re done.”  He dismissed her and her face fell.

“Alright, see you later.”  She walked away as Rae, Izzy and Archie approached. 

“She’s got it bad!”  Izzy joked as they watched Stacey leaving.

“Yeah her and half of the bloody school.”  Rae shook her head as Finn shrugged; he didn’t care what the other girls did or didn’t have. 

“Where’s Chloe?”  Archie asked as he looked around.  Finn looked uncomfortably at the floor while Rae narrowed her eyes at the door, thinking.  Izzy looked at them all, one by one.

“What’s happened?”  Izzy face filled with concern.

“Chloe has made herself into a mini version of Bruce Banner.”  Archie replied.

“The incredible hulk…?”  Finn asked unimpressed.

“No.  Bruce Banner.”  Archie corrected as they headed to the door.  “See, it’s not really Bruce’s fault that he’s the hulk, right?  But he still isolates himself from everyone… still punishes himself cos he thinks he deserves it.”  Archie shrugged.

“That’s a really flawed metaphor Archie.”  Finn shook his head.

“Is it?  I thought it were an analogy?”  He asked and Finn shrugged, “Anyway, the point is; that the hulk does a lot o’ damage that Bruce feels bad about.”  He said meaningfully.  Rae looked down and sighed to herself.  And Finn shook his head, looking off. 

“Alright, you’re definitely going to have to tell me what happened?”  Izzy said.

“Chloe kissed Finn in Sutherland.”  Rae answered.  Izzy stopped walking, frozen in a picture of shock.

“No!”  She looked from Rae’s truthful face to Finn’s downturned eyes.  “I can’t believe she did that.”  She breathed.  And then after a moment she hit Finn’s arm, “What were you thinking?”

“Oi!  I didn’t anything.”  He said and caught her hand as she started to hit him a second time. 

“Why did you let her get into a position where she could kiss you?”  Izzy hit him with her free hand, “you know how vulnerable she is right now!” 

“I didn’t think that her kissing me were a thing I had to worry about, alright?”  Finn caught her other hand, “She’s Rae’s best mate.  I kinda thought that made me invisible to her.”  Izzy pulled her hands free and gave him a dirty look.

“You’ll never be invisible to anyone Finn.”  She turned to look at Rae.  “You alright?”  She took Rae into her arms and gave Finn a dirty look over her shoulder.

“I’m fine Izzy.  She hugged Izzy and Izzy smiled.  “Finn and me made up.”  She added.  Izzy turned back to Finn.

“S’pose I can forgive you.”  She said reluctantly.  “But you have to be more careful with girls!”  She ordered.

“I know.”  He replied gravely.  “I have learned my lesson Izzy.”  Izzy turned back to Rae.

“And what about Chloe?”  Izzy asked and Rae looked away uncomfortably.

“I dunno.”  She shrugged.

“Bruce Banner.”  Archie said, “Isolating herself.”  Archie opened the door for them.  “She did it to hurt herself Rae.”  He looked at her, knowing she’d catch his meaning and she nodded slowly.  She did know what that was like. 

Rae reached out her hand for Finn and he smiled happily.  It was rare for Rae to reach for him in public.  He put his fingers between hers, feeling slightly frail and brittle.  Today was already wearing on him and it was only lunch time. 

He now had the real consideration that Phillip was the stalker.  Before, Phillip had just been an annoyance, a git that overstood his mark.  But after today, he was obviously a real threat. 

Liam.

Phillip.

His girl.

Flowers.

Chocolates.

Gold bracelet.

Dead mouse.

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Goddamn Devil’ by Ugly Kid Joe _

 

Chloe stopped when she saw him.  She’d been hoping to find a private place.  Somewhere to be alone with her thoughts.  A place where no one would see her if those thoughts made her cry. 

“Chloe.”  He greeted her and took a long suck on his cigarette. 

“Hi.”  She said softly. 

“What are you doing hiding around here?”

“I’m not hiding.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d be hanging out with your dream team.”  He said cynically. 

“No.”  She shook her head sadly, forcing the tears back from her eyes.

“Oh yeah?”  What happened?” 

“Rae hates me.”  She looked down, a tear dropped to the ground and she desperately tried to stop crying.

“Me and you both pet.”  Liam sympathised gruffly.  “Why does she hate you?”  Chloe leaned against the wall and took the cigarette he offered. 

“I kissed Finn.”  She said in a monotone.  Liam scoffed.

“Huh.  Who’d have thought that dickless wonder had the balls to cheat?”  He shook his head.  “How’d Rae take that?”  He asked eagerly.

“He didn’t cheat.”  She replied testily.  “It was all me.”  Liam chuckled, drawing heavily on his cigarette. 

“It don’t matter do it?”  He shook his head, “It’s only a matter of time until they split.” 

“Oh yeah?”  Chloe asked astutely, “And then you can sweep in and get her?”  She shook her head at him.

“I don’t think Rae’d go out with me again.”  He said with an impossible to read grin. 

“Really?  Why’s that?  She’s already done it once.  Like Finn… maybe she’ll go around for a second time with you too.”  She shrugged.

“Cos like you, little girl, I did some pretty fucked up shit to her.”

“So we’re both utter cunts.”  Chloe stated.  Liam laughed, surprised.

“You got a foul mouth.”  He grinned, “I like that on a girl.”

“Yeah well, I’ve sworn off boys.”  She folded her arms across her chest.

“Well when you’re done with that bullshite, you can come get some from me.”  Chloe puffed lightly on the cigarette, still not accustomed to the taste on her lips, the feel in her lungs. 

“So what d’you do to Rae?”  Chloe asked curiously.  She so wanted his transgressions to be worse than hers, so she could stop hating herself so much, for just a moment. 

“When we fucked, I wouldn’t let her take her clothes off.  Told her she weren’t exactly an oil painting.”  He lit another cigarette with the butt of his last one before flicking it away.  “Neither am I.”  He shrugged. 

“That’s a horrible thing to say.”  Chloe said emotionlessly.  Her transgression was still worse.  But now she hated herself more for wishing that Liam had hurt Rae more than she had.  For wishing Rae more pain. 

“Bullshit.”  He said, “I’m like fucking Judas – getting a raw real.”  He looked at her questioning face, “without me, that dickless motherfucker would o’ never been able to delicately strip his precious flower.  If she hadn’t fucked me with her clothes on, she wouldn’t o’ fucked no one.  She’d have never done it the first time naked.  I saved her from never ending virginity.”  Liam said.

“Judas?”  Chloe said sceptically.

“Yeah.  Without Judas selling Jesus out, Christ would have never died for our sins.  We should worship Judas.”  He laughed, “Without me going first.  Fuckface Finn never would o’ never got a taste o’ that sweet arse.”  He sucked on his cigarette long and hard and blew the smoke out, “and now he does all sorts o’ things to her.  And what thanks do I get?”  He shrugged. 

“That’s fucked up.”  Chloe shook her head.

“It gets better.”  He grinned.  “I grabbed hold of her and told her how fucking mental she is and how Finn only knows her with is dick, that I know her for real.  Told her he lied to her when he said she were beautiful.  Told her she couldn’t fit in his world cos she’s crazy like me.  She belongs with me.”

“You sound obsessed with her.”

“I’m not obsessed with her.”  He snapped, “don’t mistake being pissed off with obsession.”  He wiped his face roughly, “she dumped me to go fuck that faggot.”  He spat, “how d’you reckon that makes me feel?”

“Like shit.”  Chloe replied sympathetically.  She noticed a small blood patch on his sleeve.  “You’re bleeding again.”

“Fucking stiches!”  He looked down his left sleeve.

“What d’you do?”  Liam turned to her with a strange grin.  Instead of replying he rolled up his long-sleeved shirt and showed her a long jagged cut running diagonally from the left inside of his elbow down the right side of his wrist. 

“42 stitches.”  He said with a wry grin. 

“Did you…?”  She paused and looked up at his face, ‘did you try to kill yourself?”

“Bit dramatic of me weren’t it?”  He said with a dry laugh.  “Since you’re not in with the justice league anymore, fancy hanging out with me?”  He said with a grin, “I got a room o’ me own at the hospital on weekends.”  He rolled down his sleeve. 

“They commit you?”

“Only on weekends.”  He said drolly, “apparently I’m fine on weekdays.  Sane enough for school.”  He laughed. 

“I’ll come visit.”  She smiled weakly. 

“Great.”  He flicked his cigarette and walked away without another word.  Chloe sat down, her back against the building and stubbed her cigarette out, throwing the butt away.  She sat alone, barely able to think; her emotions overcrowded her.  She wished for just one moment of peace.  She understood that jagged line on his forearm.  She understood that need for everything to stop. 

But she’d promised a stranger beside a river that he’d see her again next week for a morning stroll.  So she took a deep breath and tried to feel still inside.  

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Human Behaviour’ by Bjork _

 

Kester opened his door to see Finn sitting next to Rae.  He felt a small smile touch his lips. 

“I’ll be right out here.”  Finn said softly to Rae before kissing her gently.  He nodded at Kester and reached into his backpack, indicating he had something to do.  Kester nodded back and closed the door after Rae.  He noted the bruise on her face and then looked back at the door with a questioning face and Rae sighed.

“It’s a stalker.”  She said, sounding exhausted. 

“What happened?”  His voice betrayed his concern far too much, but he didn’t care.  He sat down opposite her. 

“I tripped.”  She explained the bruise and Kester nodded thoughtfully, “And he sent me a gift.”  Rae said slowly, “a mother mouse with her head cut off, and all her little pink babies all wiggling around… it was in the bottom of a chocolate box.”  She kept her eyes on the floor, “So now Finn won’t let me out of his sight.”  She looked up at Kester, willing him to say it was nothing to worry about.  Kester sat back in his seat with a deeply concerned look on his face. 

“So he escalated from typically romantic gifts, to a dead, mutilated animal.” He took a moment to gather his thoughts.  “Generally something happens to trigger this kind of escalation.  Typically a rejection of some sort; the victim behaves in a way that the perpetrator sees as a betrayal.”

“I can’t think of anything.  Just been doing the same old stuff.”

“A lot of stalkers are previous lovers or partners.”

“That’s Liam.  I’ve had two boys.  Liam and Finn.”  She shrugged and Kester licked his lips in thought.  “And I can’t believe it’s Liam.”  Rae shook her head. 

“Ok.”  He considered.  “A lot of stalkers suffer from mental illness, personality disorders…”  He wafted through his memories, “Substance abuse is relatively common.”  He shook his head, “anyone you know who uses drugs regularly?”  Rae shook her head, “Stalkers are a hard bunch to pin down.  Most cases are very individual; only a few behaviours exist amongst a statically significant number of them, and even then, it’s never all of them.  And there’s only a very small amount of behaviours with enough incidences to call a pattern” He shook his head dismayed. 

“So he could be anyone…?  Even Phil…?”  Rae answered despondently.

“I’m afraid so.”  Kester felt worried, “there’s a lack of good research into what makes a stalker.  And each stalking case tends to progress in very individual ways.  We can’t even predict what he’ll do next.  I’m sorry Rae.”

“How long will he… stalk me?”  She could barely say the word.  Kester shook his head. 

“It’s hard to say.”  Kester said, “But given the escalation I think he’s set for the long run.”

“So he won’t stop till he’s caught.”  Rae took a breath and felt physically ill thinking about it.

“Quite possibly.”  He refrained from mentioning that some women have had to move and change their names. 

“Well are there any other of them patterns you said, that we can think about?  Maybe I’ll recognise someone in them?”  Rae looked at him hopefully and he sucked his bottom lip for a moment, thinking. 

“Some stalkers are socially maladjusted.”  He answered slowly, “Some are emotionally immature.”  He lit a cigarette.  “They often feel powerless.  Some are unable to succeed in their relationships or romantic or sexual intentions.”  His eyes crawled over the books in his shelf, hoping that there was an appropriate one there, “They can be very insecure about themselves, and they can be very jealous.”

“That sounds like Finn.”  She said shaking her head, “He’s been a bit of a pain in the arse this week with his jealousy.”  She explained and Kester furrowed his brows, a ghost of an idea forming.

“And since this started you’ve had to spend a lot more time with him?  Because he wishes to protect you?”

“It’s not Finn.”  Rae understood where he was going immediately.  Kester paused in thought; he had to consider every possibility.

“How do you know that?”

“Because he’s as scared as I am.” She said with a small shrug, “maybe even more.”  Kester drew on his cigarette.

“How is this affecting you?”

“I keep wondering who it is.”  She looked down at her feet, “today I walked around at school and I kept feeling eyes on me.  Every person became a threat.”  She swallowed back her frightened tears, “me mum thinks that he’ll rape me or kill me.”

“Well studies indicate that anywhere from 10 to 35% of stalking cases result in violence against the victim.  Much more if the victim was romantically involved with the perpetrator.”

“Do you think it’s Liam then?”  She asked seriously, not wanting to believe it.  Kester took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he considered.

“I don’t know.”  He said honestly.  “Do you want me to have a bit of a chat with him?”

“No.”  Rae answered.  “If it’s not him… he don’t deserve the suspicion, you know?”  She shook her head, thinking back to his hand over her mouth.  “There is something that happened with Liam but.” 

Rae recounted her encounter with Liam, telling Kester all the things he’d said to her, the way he’d touched her, while Kester looked more and more concerned. 

“That is a very serious incident Rae.”  He said softly. 

“I just thought he were off his meds or something.” 

“I can’t comment about that.  But I will have a talk to him.”  Kester’s face looked pained. 

“What if it is him?”

“I assume we’ll all be talking to the police then.”  Kester scratched his ear and drew heavily on his cigarette. 

“I don’t want to talk about this no more.”  She said sounding small and fragile and shaking her head miserably.

“Alright.”  Kester agreed slowly.  “How are you and Finn going?”  Rae made a strange noise, indicating that it was a hard topic.  Kester waited patiently, smoking quietly.

“Chloe kissed him.”  Rae said eventually.  “And I’m really angry at her for doing it.”  Kester opened his mouth to ask a question but Rae continued, “But…”  Rae looked confused, “but I’m more angry at her for telling me.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I dunno.”  Rae said with genuine unease.  “Because Finn did nothing wrong, so it’s nothing for us, you know?  She not telling me that he’s a cheater and saving me from that… he’s solid.”  Her face screwed up in concentration, “and it’s complicated with her.”  Rae said.  “Archie said she did it to hurt herself.  She going through a lot of stuff.”  Rae tried to work through it.  “It’s like, she s’posed to be me best mate, and she does this… but I think she did it to hurt herself… And… maybe also to try and make herself feel better.  I don’t think it was about me, or she did it to hurt me.”  Rae picked at the hem on her skirt, “but I feel like I can’t trust her now… but… Kester... She needs me.”  Rae shook her head, “She’s in so much trouble.  And so much pain.  And I don’t to leave her alone with that.  I know what that’s like.”  Rae took a deep breath, “So I just wish she hadn’t told me.”  She bit her bottom lip, “Cos I want’a be there for her… but… she cheated our friendship.”  She looked thoughtful, “to hurt herself.”  Rae’s voice got softer as she thought more about it.  “Because the thing that would hurt her most… would be to lose me.  Her best mate.”  Rae looked up at him, “the way she told me, was so that she would lay the most amount of blame on herself as possible.  She wanted me to hate her.”  Rae said with understanding. 

“So what will you do about that?”  Kester stubbed out his cigarette and leaned forward.

“I’m gonna have to talk to her.”  Rae said, “I can’t let her hurt herself like that.”  Rae said.  “But I gotta keep Finn away from her too!”  Rae said with a small grin.  “She’ll probably keep trying to hurt herself, you know?  For a while.”

“Are you worried Finn will give in to temptation?”  Rae pulled a contemplative face. 

“Part of me says ‘no – not a chance.  It’s not even a temptation for him.’  But another part of me says ‘why wouldn’t he?  Chloe’s so pretty… of course he’ll shag her.’ So…”  She pulled another face.  “So I dunno.”  Kester waited while she looked at the floor, “I think he might actually love me.” 

“What makes you feel that?”  Kester said with a small smile.

“Everything he does and says.”  She said, her eyes gazing inwardly as she thought about him, “the way he makes me feel…”  She thought of that look in his eyes, “The way he looks at me.” 

“And all these things that he says and does… how do you take them?”  Rae looked at Kester, not fully understanding the question.

“What d’you mean?”

“Do you feel like you deserve the things he does for you?  Or the things he says?”  Kester let his thumbs fidget with each other gently she watched her think.

“Sometimes.”  She said slowly, thoughtfully. 

“But sometimes not?”

“Sometimes not.”  She reflected on this.

“And what do you do when he does or says something for and you feel like you don’t deserve it?”  He narrowed his eyes slightly, his mind still on Liam and the possibility that he might be stalking Rae.  Kester was fully aware that Liam had the kind of personality that could turn obsessive. 

“I dunno.”  She said softly.  “I kinda… deflect it.”  She pulled a face. 

“So you don’t accept this love you think he’s trying to give you?”

“Sometimes.”  Rae admitted quietly. 

“But sometimes you do.”

“It must be so hard for him.”  She said quietly.  “Whatever I give him, I feel like he’s grateful for it.  But half of whatever he gives me I throw back at him.”  She furrowed her brow and looked at the door where she knew Finn waited on the other side, probably bored, but infinitely patient. 

“I think that’s how I know he loves me the most; he’s patient with me.”  She said softly, “more patient than I am with myself.”  She stood up and looked out the window, “he just accepts me exactly as I am.”  She marvelled, “he watches me turn the fucking light switches on and off, and he says nought about it.  Unless he sees I’m anxious about what he’s thinking.”  She smiled fondly.  “Then he just tells me it’s alright.”  She touched the glass and stared at a couple walking in the hospital grounds, “he tells me he loves my body.  And not just you know… generally.”  Rae shook her head, “he tells me every single thing about my body he loves.  Even me stretch marks.”  She blushed slightly.  “He listens to me bang on forever about everything and he likes it.”  She turned to Kester, “he’s doing therapy for me.”  Rae sighed, “everything he does Kester.  Everything he does is for me.  But… but he hasn’t told me that he loves me.”

“His actions seem to speak very loudly.”

“But he hasn’t said those words.”

“And you want to hear them?” 

“Course I do.”  Rae fidgeted with her fingernails.

“And you can’t say it first?”

“I always thought I would.”  She shrugged, “I suppose I will end up saying it first.”  She grinned.  “But what if it’s too much for him” She fretted, “what if he thinks I’m one of those needy girls who says ‘I love you’ too soon?”  Kester lit another cigarette and listened to her listing off her concerns.  “What if he doesn’t love me and I’m totally wrong?  What if he thinks he’s too young for this love stuff?”  She sat down on the chair with a plonk, “what if me saying ‘I love you’ makes him realise that a mad fat girl is what I am and he runs away horrified at what he’s been shagging?  What if me saying it makes him realise that he doesn’t love me.  What if he sees how much hard work I am when I tell him how much I love him?  What if-”

“What if he simply says that he loves you too when you say it?”  Kester asked.

“I hadn’t thought of that.”  Rae said, struck by the idea.  “But what if he doesn’t?”

“Well there’s only one way to find out.”  Kester determined and Rae looked at him, her fear showing, but she knew he was right.  She nodded her head. 

“How are you sleeping?”  Kester changed the subject.

“Not very good.”

“Not surprising.”  He said with a smile.  “We’ve discussed, briefly, while you were an inpatient, how important sleep is.”  Rae nodded.  “So in light of all the stressors in your life, I’d like to teach you a self-guided meditation for sleep.”  Rae nodded indicating her openness to learning it. 

 

 

25 minutes later, Rae left Kester’s office feeling very peaceful and de-stressed.  Finn didn’t hear her open the door so she caught a glimpse of him reading, looking confused and determined.  She looked at the book and saw that he was reading her copy of ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.’  She sat down beside him.

“What you reading that for?”

“It’s your favourite play.”  He smiled shyly.  “I don’t get it.”  He added, embarrassed.

“It’s not an easy play to understand.”  She smiled encouragingly, “It’s about existentialism.  It’s kinda absurdist.”  He watched her mouth move, not understanding what she meant.  “You didn’t get my explanation did you?”  She smiled.  He frowned, thinking of what Phillip had said.

“Am I dumb Rae?”  He asked fiercely, his eyebrows drawn together in concern. 

“No!”  She said vehemently. “Just cos you don’t know something it don’t make you dumb!” 

“You must get right bored talking to me.”  He looked back down at the play.

“No, Finn-”

“Why is Hamlet in this?  I thought he was Shakespeare?  I’m so confused…”

“Hamlet is Shakespeare!”  She smiled, “this is based on two minor characters in Hamlet!”  She explained.

“Really.  I knew that I knew that.”  He looked back down at the book.  “Fucking Hamlet.” 

“I like Hamlet.”

“Oh fuck.”  He groaned.

“You don’t have to like Shakespeare cos I do.”  But Finn could only think of Phillip’s masterful mastery of Shakespeare. 

“How can you like Shakespeare and Oasis?”  He groaned.

“How can you like football and oasis?”  She retorted. 

“I think they go together a bit better.”  He grinned at her.  They stood up and started to head out.

“Ok maybe.”  She conceded.  She looked down at the cards Kester had given her confirming their appointments for the week.  “So we’re back here on Thursday for you, and Saturday for-”

“No, I’m cancelling mine.”

“Why?”  She felt really shaken by his words.

“Just till the stalker thing is sorted out.  I’m not gonna leave you by yourself while-”

“I will be fine.”  She said firmly, “I need you to keep going ok?”  Finn shrugged, non-committal.  They would have to talk about this later.  When he wasn’t so tense about an absurd, existential play. 

 

 

They stopped off at Rae’s house to pick up some things for Rae and see her family.  But the house was empty, save for several large bunches of flowers.  And the corresponding cards that had been left on the table.  All with the heart and her name on them.  Most of the flowers had been dumped in the bin, but there was a bunch on the table.  Finn looked at them with hostile eyes.

“Let’s get what you need and go.”

“I can’t stay at your house forever.”  She replied.

“Well then I’ll have to stay here.”  He shook his head, “it’s not happening any other way.” 

Rae didn’t reply but jotted down a note to her mother, promising to call tonight.  She’d discuss Finn’s demand with her then.  She didn’t expect that conversation to go well. 

They both went upstairs.  Rae missed her room, even though she enjoyed the smell and feel of Finn’s room.  She packed up a few more things, mostly it was pads she was after, but she covered it by packing some other toiletries and a few items of clothing. 

The doorbell rang.  Rae’s window didn’t overlook the front door anymore so they couldn’t see who it was.  They looked at each other. 

“Got everything?”  She nodded.  They went downstairs together.  There was no one at the door, as they had expected.

“He’s here.”  She said in a tiny voice, “isn’t he?”  Finn scanned up the road both ways as he opened the door for Rae and she got into the car.

“I don’t know.”  He said calmly, “Could’a been pranking kids.”  He said locking and closing her door.  He kept a wary eye out as he walked around the car and got into the driver’s seat, locking the door. 

Finn pulled out of the driveway quickly, his heart thumping, his temper barely contained. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Loser’ by Beck _

 

He had unwillingly left her to go to her biology class and headed into general, or basic English.  Some even called it remedial English.  Whatever you called it, he hated it.  He was worried about leaving her by herself after what had happened at her house yesterday.  It might have been nothing.  But it might not have been.  Finn sat in his usual seat and tried to put it out of his mind.  He had enough trouble focussing in English without this stuff to think about.  Instead, he mulled over essay questions while everyone else was laughing and joking, waiting for a substitute teacher to show up.  He had considered stopping English all together since he knew he had failed the makeup test and would have to repeat it anyway.  But he worried that he wouldn’t pass his second year the second time around; he’d only barely scraped by in his first year.  So he’d decide to stick with it and try to get some practice in.  Mrs Rikkon had called in unexpectedly sick today, and the other teachers had been covering her classes.  He’d seen Mr Roach covering Izzy’s basic English class earlier on today. 

_God I hope I don’t get Roach._

Macca sat down next to Finn and the majority male class were all chuckling and guffawing.  The three girls in the class sat up the front of the room and watched on with interest. 

“Hey Finn.”  Macca looked at the page he was reading. 

“Hey.”  Finn said without looking up.  He’d heard about what Macca and, especially Simmy had been doing to Archie, and he had no interest in being friendly with either of them anymore.  He felt his temper starting to boil but consciously decided to work to keep it under control. 

“So it’s true… you’re with that Rae Earl bird?”

“Aye.”  He said without looking up.

“Why would you go for her after Stacey?”  Simmy scoffed from across the room. 

“Why wouldn’t I?”  Finn asked.  “Big fucking improvement on Stacey, trust me.”  Finn muttered, but was still heard by everyone. 

“Isn’t she fucking mental but?”  Simmy continued.

“She’d have to be, to be fucking me.”  Finn replied, wondering if he should mention Archie, his eyes still on the essay questions, his temper threatening to get the better of him. 

“So you fucking her?”  Macca asked.  Finn raised his eyes raised from the paper to Macca.

“Aye, that’s what I said.”

“She got a magic fanny!”  Simmy said and there was general laughter.  Finn looked ahead at the blackboard for a moment, considering his options, soothing his temper like it was a child version of himself, like Rae had said.

“Leave off!”  Josh unexpectedly said, “She not a bad girl.” 

“Yeah, you’ve done worse.”  Sam backed Josh up.  Simmy pulled a face at Sam, but Macca feigned innocence.

“I ain’t got a bad word to say about big girls!  Pussy’s pussy!”  He said holding his hands up in a sign of surrender, he got some laughter from the guys watching on, but Finn took a silent breath to sooth his anger, “and big girls do know how to suck cock.”  Uproarious laughter from almost everyone, “and you know more cushion for the pushing!”  Finn managed to stop his twitching hands from balling into fists and smashing Macca’s teeth out.  He felt momentarily pleased with himself. 

“Big tits!”  Another guy said.  “Really big tits!” 

“Yeah, you’re a tit man aren’t you Finn?”  Rick, a boy Finn knew from football, remembered Finn’s previous locker room talk.

“Aye.”  Finn allowed himself a satisfied grin.  Rae truly did have magnificent tits.  Finn saw one of the girls, a slightly chubby girl watching everything intently, the other two girls had turned away.  The chubbier girl’s eyes lingered on Finn for a moment before she turned away too. 

“Disgusting boys.”  He heard one of them say.  Josh and Sam looked around uncomfortably, caught between being one of the lads and knowing that Rae was solid. 

“Rae’d have more than a handful!”  Macca guffawed. 

“Aye.”  Finn said, the smirk not leaving his face, but he had no intention of elaborating past what was blatantly obvious; she had big breasts. 

“You know, I bet she’s fucking great in the sack – she’d be so thankful for a shag!”  Simmy bellowed.  “Bet she gave it up easy.”

“Actually Rae made me work real hard for it.”  Finn said, a smile on his face.  “And you’re right, she is an amazing shag.  But a little boy like you wouldn’t know what to do with her.”  This was met with general laughter too, even if Simmy did look put out.

“I’d know what to do with her just fine!”  Simmy retorted.

“Oh aye?  This from the guy that punches people from behind, in the back o’ the head, rather than front on, in a fair fight.”  Finn let Simmy know that he knew about Archie, “next time you want’a punch someone, try me.”  Simmy gave Finn an angry look, but was silenced by Macca,

“Fuck that shit.”  Macca changed the topic back with a chorus of general approval.  “What she do that’s so amazing?”  He asked with genuine interest.  Finn looked around at all the expectant eyes.

“Most of you fuckers are virgins, aren’t you?”  He suddenly realised.  The girls laughed quietly and the boys made jeering sounds and laughed, accusing each other of not getting any.  Finn remembered a time when he would have been part of that group of boys, he shook his head. 

“What are her tits like?”  Rick called across the room. 

“Ask her yourself.”  Finn grinned.

“I’m not gonna fucking ask her!”  He said confused by Finn’s unwillingness to brag, given his past locker room talk. 

“Then why are you asking me?”  Finn looked back down at the essay questions. 

“You got it bad!”  Macca teased.

“Aye.”  Finn nodded his head.  He was glad he’d managed to keep his temper under control, this was just amusing now that he realised how pathetic they all really were. 

“So what, you love her?”  Macca asked.

“Aye.” 

Elsa walked in drinking tea from a large thermos, carrying a stack of folders, and looking unimpressed. 

“Speaking o’ more cushion for the pushing.”  Macca said as his eyes fell to her arse.  Finn rolled his eyes at Macca,

“Virgin.”  He said softly.

“Fuck you.”  Macca replied with a grin, “Miss you in music.”  Finn turned to him.

“Stop being a cunt to Archie right?  He me best mate.”

“Alright.”  Macca shrugged, “it’s more Simmy than me anyhow.” 

“Don’t give a fuck.  Don’t do it.”  Finn said as quietly as possible and Macca nodded.

“Right.  Quiet.”  Elsa said, her patience levels clearly at a critically low level.  “We’ve got nearly half of our teachers out today with this virus.  So I am exhausted, and not in the mood.  Got it?”  She was met with silence.  “Right.  She pointed at a student.  “Starting here, going left, shoot around the room and scream your name at me.  As loud as you can.” 

“David.”  He answered softly. 

“God I hope you never have to announce a fire to a crowded room.”  She smiled and he laughed nervously, “You alright?”  He nodded.  She pointed to the next person.  It was Josh, who yelled out his name loudly.  That started off everyone with knowing it was ok; she actually meant to yell.  Everyone except Simmy gave a good yell, Simmy was angry; Finn had just made him look like wuss.  Elsa tried him twice, but he would not yell is name.  She moved on, and at the end she pointed at David again and he yelled his name out with a big grin. 

“What are you guys studying?”

“Contemporary scripts, imagery and tropes.”  The chubby girl said.

“Thanks Kathleen.”  Elsa looked through the notes on the table, “television?”  She shook her head, “you’re studying television shows?”  She saw them nodding their heads.  “Comparative study of Absolutely Fabulous, Doctor Who, not really contemporary, unfortunately, Bottom, The Darling buds of May, Hamish MacBeth, Heartbeat, and Lady Chatterley.”  She read from the notes. 

“That Lady Chatterley is bang up for it, even though she acts all proper.”  Simmy said at an attempt to regain his status.  “Bit like you Miss.”  He added. 

“Oooh.”  A few lads jeered quietly.  Elsa narrowed her eyes and looked at him.  The class was utterly silent.  Finn looked from Elsa to Simmy and then back down at his essay questions, already having a good idea of what was coming.

“Why would you think that you had the right to say that to me in front of a classroom of students?”  She asked almost pleasantly. 

“It was just a joke Miss.”  Simmy said lightly. 

“But we all know it wasn’t.”  She said seriously.  “Comments like these are clearly designed to make the recipient feel uncomfortable.  They are a thinly veiled attempt at claiming power and dominance.”  Finn heard one of the girls chuckle softly.

“I didn’t mean nothing by it.”  Simmy said uncomfortably.

“Oh that’s good to know.”  She said kindly.  “But tell me Simon.  What is it about me that makes you think that I would be bang up for it?”  She asked as if it were a genuine interest. 

“I dunno, the way you walk.”

“So the way I carry myself.”  Finn noticed that Elsa had barely moved throughout this whole incident.  She was really pissed off. 

“Yeah.”

“But of course you meant nothing by it.  Even though the way I walk, which is with confidence, nothing more and nothing less, seems to be open to sexual interpretation; you meant nothing by it.”  A couple of the boy’s mouths dropped, not sure how to take what she was saying.  “A woman who does not hate herself and her body is seen to be open to sex.”  She looked around the mostly male class, “you’ll all be writing a 2000 word essay on this topic.  Write it down.”  She waited for them to get pens, “The essay topic is this: images of women and women’s bodies on television and what this does to female body image and male attitudes to women and women’s bodies.  You know what?  Make it 3000 words.  You can all do with knowing about this topic.”  She walked up to the blackboard and grabbed the chalk, and wrote dot points for what she was saying, “This essay will have a minimum of 20 references.”  There was a general murmur in the classroom but Elsa continued, “with no less than 10 of them from psychological texts or studies and a further 5 to 10 from sociological ones.”  She turned back to them.  “What other assignments do you have for this class?”  Finn held out the essay sheet to her.  “This is a very light workload.”  She looked down at the list of assignments.  “You have a month to return it to me.  I’ll organise for it to count towards your final grade.” 

For the rest of the lesson everyone shot Simmy dirty looks.  Finn looked at his increasing homework load and sighed internally.  He groaned to himself that he was actually doing it all now. 

As everyone left the class, heading for lunch, Elsa pulled Finn aside.

“Right.”  She said softly as she went through her folders and pulled one out with his name on it.  “You failed English.”  She looked up at him and he nodded his head. 

“I knew I had.”  She looked back down at the results of his make up tests. 

“You aced science, as was expected.  Physical Education you did excellently on, Media studies was a little mediocre, but still a pass.  You didn’t do your music make up test…”  She looked at him again, “because you dropped music to do performing arts.”  Finn nodded.

“That’s right.”

“You haven’t done enough performing arts to pass this year.  You’ll have to repeat it.”

“I know.”

“You are excellent at music, and you’ve picked up a subject that you frankly seem to despise.”  Elsa raised her eyebrows at him. 

“It’s growing on me.”  Finn flashed Rae’s copy of ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead’; he had it on him most of the time, he was still working his way through it. 

“Rae’s favourite play.”

“Aye.”

“So you’re doing this subject for Rae.”  Finn shrugged.  “That’s a poor reason to choose a subject.”  She told him frankly.

“It’s done.”  Finn said with finality.  Elsa considered him for a moment.

“Ok.”  She relented, “but let’s talk about your English problem.”  Finn nodded his head.  Elsa walked to the door and closed it.  She returned to Finn.

“I like Mrs Rikkon as a person, but she’s a shit teacher.  I could tell from today that you are bored in this class, the subjects being covered do not interest you.”

“Yeah well, English is compulsory.”

“I want you to pick up English with Mrs Vines.”  Finn shook his head.

“That’s advanced English, I’m not gonna do that.  It’d be too hard for me.” 

“Harder yes, but not too hard.  And a far better teacher.”  Finn shook his head, “You’d be in Rae’s class next year.”  She said with a wry smile. 

“You just told me that was a poor reason to study something!”  Finn said bemused.

“Just using your own reasoning against you.”  Finn groaned and looked around, unsure.

“I dunno Elsa.” 

“Trust me on this Finn.”  He sighed.

“I can’t just go straight into second year advanced English, I’m too far behind!” 

“What about I drop you back down to first year for the rest of this school year?  You’d be doing advanced English in Rae’s class starting tomorrow.”  She sweetened the deal.  Finn looked very tempted. 

“They’re doing utopias and dystopias, I don’t even know what those words mean… and fucking Hamlet.”

“And they’ll also be dong the play you‘re reading now.”  She nodded at the text in his hand. 

“I don’t understand it but.” 

“But you will.”  He looked away from her and bit his bottom lip.  “That’d be two of five classes with Rae instead of one.” 

“Alright.”  He agreed, “Oh fuck, I’ll never pass!”  He instantly questioned his choice. 

“Yes you will.”  Elsa grinned.  “So that means you’ll get A levels in media studies, PE and general science at the end of this school year.  That’s technically enough…”

“Yeah except for English being fucking compulsory.”  He shook his head.  “Fucking advanced.”  He sighed again.  “And anyway me da wants me to have 4 A levels.”  He added.  Elsa nodded. 

“You’ll get advanced English and performing arts next year.  That’s 5 A levels.  What about picking up a 6th?  Like music, or a specialised science.  Ms Verna thinks you’d make an excellent physicist.  You could even pick up maths.” 

“I hadn’t thought o’ doing that.”  He said honestly. 

“It will help with university admission.  If you get good grades; the repeating will not seem so bad.”  Finn bit the inside of his mouth. 

“Alright, might do physics.”

“Excellent.  And you will be actually performing in performing arts.”

“Yeah I know.”  He said morosely. 

“And you’ll still be doing the essay I set today, as well as the work in Rae’s English class.”

“I know.”  He sighed heavily.

“Be gone.”  She waved him off and Finn left for lunch in an apprehensive mood.

_Advanced English.  I’m never leaving this place.  I’ll never fucking pass it._

_Fuck._

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in my Hand’ by Primitive Radio Gods _

 

“Archie, d’you know where Chlo is?”  Rae asked without sitting down at the table.  Archie looked up from his sandwich and nodded over to the gymnasium. 

“I saw her heading behind the main building.”  The main building was behind the gym.  Rae had crashed out of that building months ago and met Liam for the first time.  She’d been avoiding that area because she knew Liam smoked around there. 

“Alright.”  She kissed Finn and started to head off in that direction.

“Where you going?”  He started to follow.

“I need to talk to Chloe alone.”

“Alright.”  He said still walking.

“Alone.”  She stopped.

“I’ll stay back so I can’t hear.  But I’m not letting you out o’ me sight, if I can help it.”  Rae stopped herself from sighing with frustration. 

“Alright fine.”  She’d had to battle him this morning to get him to go to his classes; he’d wanted to cut them and hang around the doors to hers.  She knew that going back to her house had spooked them both a little, so she forgave him for being crazy, and decided not to battle him now.  She needed to focus on Chloe.  She just hoped Liam wasn’t there.  She wasn’t sure how Finn would react to seeing him. 

As Rae walked around the corner of the building she saw Chloe, sitting alone on the ground, staring off.

“Stay.”  She said to Finn and he gave her an unimpressed look but she just raised her eyebrows at him and kept walking towards Chloe.  Finn leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette and watched her walk away, admiring the way her arse moved in her jeans. 

“Hi.”  Rae said as she approached Chloe.  Chloe looked up at her as she sat down.

“Hi?”  She said, confused and worried.  “What are you doing-”

“You lied to me Chloe.”  Rae said softly.  Chloe’s breath caught in her throat and she shook her head defiantly. 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”  She frowned and shrugged.

“You said you threw yourself at him.  That you grabbed him and tried to fuck his mouth with yours.”

“He didn’t do nothing though.”  Chloe said vehemently, “he just pushed me away, and then he said that he didn’t want me.  So you know – it weren’t him.”  A tear fell down her face.

“Finn told me what happened.”  Chloe looked away, “I made him show me what your kiss were like.”  Chloe kept her face averted.  “And I believe him.”

“Of course.  Why would you believe me over him?”  She sounded bitter.

‘I believe him, because he’s never lied to me.  And because I think you’re trying to hurt yourself Chloe.”  Chloe sniffed and wiped her nose with her sleeve.

“Why would you care, after what I did?”

“I dunno.  Cos you’re still me best mate.  Even if…”  Rae’s eyes strayed to Finn, standing far enough away to not hear them, smoking and trying not to look at them too obviously.  “Even if I can’t trust you around Finn just yet.”  Chloe sniffed again and brought her knees up under her chin.  “But I know you’re not doing it to hurt me.  And I now you’re not doing it because you want him so bad, though I’d understand if you did.  You’re doing it to hurt yourself.”  Rae scooted forward a little, to be closer to her, “and you lied to me, to make yourself look bad, so I’d hate you.  So you’d be alone.  Cos it’s what you think you deserve, isn’t it?”  A sob escaped Chloe and Rae reached over and pulled her into her arms.  Finn watched Rae hold Chloe as she wept.  Compassion was one of her many personality traits that he so admired and loved.  He doubted he’d be doing the same for Chop if Chop kissed Rae; no matter what his excuse was. 

“You wanted me to hate you, as much as you hate yourself.”  Chloe felt her arms wrapping around Rae’s warm waist, her head buried in her comforting shoulder.  “But I can’t hate you Chloe.  I love you.”  This elicited loud sobs from Chloe and Rae stroked her hair.  “You.  Are my best friend Chloe.”  She kissed Chloe on the top of the head and held her for a long time before the crying eased. 

“I’m sorry Rae.”  She whispered.

“It’s ok Chlo.”  Rae soothed, “I forgive you; it’s alright.” 

“I don’t know why I can’t let go of Finn.”

“Lots of reasons.  Your shared history.  He’s so different now from all the guys that have hurt you.  He’s right there all the time.”

“You know about before, don’t you?”

“Before Stacey?”  Chloe nodded.  “Finn said he were a bit of a prick to you.”

“Not really.  Well actually, kinda.”  She sounded worried about what Rae might think, so Rae made a noise encouraging her to continue.

“I were 15 when I saw him.  Followed him round for a bit before he noticed me.”  Chloe wiped her face.  “He was so obviously only wanting sex though.  And I hadn’t even kissed anyone yet.”  She shook her head.  “I was kinda glad when he lost interest; I weren’t ready.  We only hung around together for a few days.  I thought he were a bit of a twat.”  Chloe smiled wanly. 

“He probably was then.”  Rae smiled encouragingly. 

“When Izzy introduced us again.  I weren’t sure it were him.  He were different.”  Chloe shook her head, “Carried himself different.”  She sat up slightly, her hands holding Rae’s.  “By the time I realised that it really was him, the conversation had moved on so it felt weird to say anything.  And he didn’t seem to remember me anyway.”  She shrugged, “figured we’d start new.”  She looked at Rae’s red nail polish as their fingers intertwined, “He were still so fit… I figured maybe we’d try it again, you know.  I were more ready this time.”  She looked up at Rae, “But he never showed interest in me again.”  She looked away.  “I thought I’d lost my chance to be with him.”  She shook her head, “But he told me in Sutherland that he’d never thought of me that way.”  She took her hand from Rae’s and wiped her face.  “And I felt… lost and alone?”  She questioned her feelings.  “Worthless.  A guy like Finn would never want me.”

“That’s not true.”  Rae soothed, “Do you think maybe that Finn has become a bit of a… I dunno… holy grail?”  Rae struggled to find the right words.  Chloe took a deep breath.

“I’ve thought about this.”  She lowered her eyes.  “I want him because I know he wouldn’t hurt me.”  A tear slipped down her cheek, “cos I see what a good man he is.  And I so want that Rae.”  She cried.  “I’m so tired of…”  Rae took her into her arms again. 

“It’s alright Chloe.”  Rae stroked her hair again, “you’ll find someone that won’t hurt you.  You just have to think you’re worth it.”  Rae thought back to her session with Kester yesterday and looked over at Finn.  She still didn’t think she was worth Finn.  Even after everything that had happened, and all the work he’d done to try to tell her otherwise. 

But it didn’t matter.  She wasn’t going to let go of him, even if she didn’t deserve him.  And she was going to work at deserving him.  And at believing she deserved him.  Both. 

She watched him pull that her book from his back pocket and open it up.  She grinned for a moment and then turned her attention back to Chloe, who had settled again. 

“I don’t deserve love Rae.” 

“Of course you do.”  Rae responded immovably.  “Now let’s take you to the loo and we’ll clean you up.  Come spend the rest of lunch with us, where you belong.”

“Finn can’t follow you into the girls’ bathroom.”  Chloe glanced over at Finn.

“Won’t stop him trying.”  Rae rolled her eyes but grinned.

“Are you ok with all of that?”  Chloe took Rae’s hand and held it tightly.

“No.”  Rae decided to be honest.  “But there’s not much we can do about it… which is why I think Finn has become hyper-vigilant.”  Rae got up and held out a hand for Chloe, “Come on.”  Chloe took her hand and stood up.

“Thanks Rae.” 

“Anytime.” 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Roots Bloody Roots’ by Sepultura _

 

They pulled up outside Finn’s house and he leaned in for a kiss that she gladly gave him.  He breathed deeply looked into her eyes and brought his hands up to her face.  They kissed for a long time before he got out of the car and walked around to open Rae’s door. 

_He always does stuff like that.  He’s so romantic._

He held out his hand with a beautiful crooked grin on his face.  She took his hand and they headed inside. 

Finn’s dad was sitting on the lounge, smoking.  Finn hadn’t seen him smoke in years.  He stubbed out the cigarette and looked at Finn moodily. 

“Da?”

“Where is it?”  Gary asked softly, the deep pit of anger he felt barely contained. 

_Oh fuck._

“Where’s what?”  Finn asked, but his change in attitude and the way he squared his shoulders told Rae that Finn knew exactly what his dad was talking about.  Gary stood up angrily.

“Don’t play dumb with me.”

“I’m not playing dumb.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”  His voice started to rise and Rae felt Finn’s fingers leaving hers as he pulled himself up to his full height and stepped towards his father.

“Maybe I do.”

“Oh, maybe you do?”  Gary was furious.

“Maybe you should fucking say it.”  He matched his father’s anger.

“Where’s the letter?”

“Oh you mean the one from my mum.”  Finn stepped forward, his father and him almost toe to toe. 

“So you did take it?”

“The one where she says she wants to fucking kill me?”  Rae felt something cracking in Finn, felt the huge sea of emotions he’d been holding back scream and flood out of him.

“How dare you go through my private property.”  Gary’s top lip sneered in rage and disgust.

“How dare you keep it from me!”  Finn’s voice roared in anger.

“You had no right!”

“No you had no right!”  Finn’s fury was inescapable.

“You had no right to go through my things!”

“You had no right to hide it!”

“That letter was not for you!”

“Oh right!”  Finn nodded arrogantly and stepped forward.

“Yeah.  That is fucking right!” 

“How could you let me forget my sister, you fucking cunt.”  The force and hatred in Finn’s voice nearly flattened Rae. 

“Grace was-”

“NO!  No you don’t get to say her name!”  Finn roared. 

“Finn, you-”

“YOU DON’T EVER GET TO SAY HER NAME!”  Finn’s anger had reached a height Rae had never seen in anyone before. 

“You don’t know-” Gary’s volume was matching Finn’s now, his face reddening with anger

“How can you live with yourself?”

“I do not have-”

“You’re a fucking monster!” 

“You have no idea-”.

“No, cos you didn’t tell me!”  He yelled with a hoarse, cracking voice. 

“I don’t have to tell you anything!”  Gary matched Finn’s rage and Rae grew increasingly afraid.  She saw more and more just how alike Finn and Gary were.  Neither was backing down.  Finn got right up into his father’s face.

“I burned that fucking letter.”  Finn said with a sadistic grin.

“How dare you…” Gary shook his head in disgust, his anger growing and his voice steadied into a low, threatening rumble.  “That was the last thing your mother ever gave me.”  He squeezed the words out through wrath and gritted teeth. 

“I don’t give a fuck!” 

“You fucking arsehole!”

“Oh I’m the fucking arsehole?  You did nothing while my ma went crazy.”

“Your mother-”

“You watched her every fucking day.  You saw she were in pain.  And you did fuck all.”

“I am not going to talk to you about this.” 

“You’re pathetic!  You’re a piece of shit!”  He pushed his father.  Hard. 

“Don’t you lay hands on me son.”  Gary warned with a threatening tone. 

Finn suddenly threw his head back and laughed.  A harsh barking laugh in the silence.  Rae was terrified of what she knew was coming. 

Without warning he snapped a perfectly serious face back to his dad and in the same action hit him square in the jaw with ferocious force. 

Rae gasped, her hands going to her face in shock and fear as Gary stumbled backward violently, almost losing his footing. 

“Don’t lay hands on you?”  He laughed again, “Like that?”  He spat at him.  “Like that, motherfucker?”  He screamed.  Gary touched the blood on his lips and looked up at Finn with a murderous glare.  Finn never took his eyes off him, he raised his fists.  “Come on dad.”  He said aggressively.  “Let’s sort this shit out.” 

Gary squared up and nodded.

“Alright.”  He spat blood onto the floor and started to close the gap between himself and Finn. 

_They’re gonna end up killing each other._

“Alright, alright, alright!”  Rae cried out and stood in between them, extending a hand to Finn’s chest and gently pushing him back.  “JUST STOP!”  She looked at Gary, his eyes never leaving Finn’s. 

“STOP IT!”  She yelled and Gary’s eyes flicked down to hers.  

Rae screamed as quite suddenly she felt Finn’s arms around her waist, picking her up roughly, almost knocking the wind out of her, moving her firmly out of the way, her twisted ankle copping a lot of pain as she fell to her knees when he put her down. 

As soon as he was done moving her he turned back to his father. 

Rae turned and saw with horror that Gary had swung at Finn. 

“Oh no.”  She whimpered as she scrambled to her feet.  Finn blocked the blow and in the same movement twisted his hand around to grab Gary’s forearm and pulled him closer, his other fist planting itself firmly in his father’s stomach. 

As Gary doubled over, Rae had the chance to register that Gary’s intended hit had been open handed.  A slap. 

Finn pushed his father back aggressively. 

“Come on!”  He raised his fists again, wanting his father to hit him back. 

Gary took a breath and squared up again, raising his fists as Finn sunk his weight down, bending his knees and bouncing a little, ready for a proper brawl, his eyes filled with rage and violence. 

_I have to do something!_

“What the hell is going on?”  Janice said as she walked through the front door.

_Oh thank fuck!_

“He knows about the letter.”  Rae turned to her, tears on her face. 

“Right!”  She said marching in and putting her hands over Gary’s raised fists.  Rae followed suit and grabbed Finn, trying to get him to break eye contact with his dad. 

“Finn.”  She pleaded.  “Please, Finn.”  He wouldn’t look at her, “You’re scaring me.”  She cried and his eyes dropped to hers.  “Let’s just go.”  She whispered, “please, take me somewhere else.”  His hand came up to her face and wiped a tear from her cheek.  But then his face turned back to his father.  Janice was lecturing Gary firmly.  Rae grabbed Finn’s hand and pulled him hard towards the front door.  She picked up their bags and kept pulling him as he looked over his shoulder at his dad. 

“Don’t you dare leave this house, boy.”  Gary suddenly said as they reached the front door.

“Fuck you!”  Rae suddenly said, she stormed back in towards him, “You hide something like this from him all his life and then get angry at him when finds out and it fucks him up?”  She shook her head angrily at him, “What’s wrong with you?  This is your fault.  And you think letting him use fists is the way to handle it?”  She was shaking with fear and anger and grief for Finn, her memories of how he wept when he’d found out, prodding her into a fury, “You should have told him, years ago!  You failed as a dad.  So you don’t get to make the rules now!”  She backed away, tears streaming down her face, “I’m taking him to my place.  To get the fuck away from you!”  When she turned around, Finn’s eyes were on her, his father forgotten.  “Come on.”  She took his hand and he followed. 

Rae threw the bags into the back seat of the car and got in the driver’s seat.  She knew she shouldn’t drive when she was shaking like this, but she had no choice.  Finn sat beside her silently, his eyes on her as she pulled out of the driveway. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Protection’ by Massive Attack _

 

She managed to get nearly two blocks before having to pull over to the side of the road.  She burst into tears and Finn laid a hand over her thigh.

“Thank you.”  He said with a clear, strong voice.  She looked up at him, confused.  “I’ve never had someone…”  He paused, to find the right words, “No one’s ever done something like that for me.”  He shook his head, barely moving, “No one’s ever stuck up for me like that.”  In a quick sudden move, his lips were on hers.  He kissed her passionately, her tears still pouring down her face.  His hands cupped her face and his mouth made love to hers, the heat between them almost excruciating.  When he stopped he kept his hands on her face, his forehead touching hers.

“Did I hurt you?”  He asked, referring to the way he’d moved her out of the way.  She could tell from the tone in his voice that he was ready to spiral into a pit of self-hatred.  So she decided to lie.

“No.”  He accepted what she had said with a slight, sceptical nod.

“But I scared you?”

“I was worried your dad might hit you.”  She saw the raw emotion in his eyes, emotions that he had barely started to process and feel.  He shook his head.

“He weren’t gonna punch me.”  Finn sighed and leaned back in his chair.  “He were letting me use him as a punching bag.”  He looked out the window, clearly disgusted with himself.  Rae reached into his pockets and he shifted, allowing her to do whatever it was that she wanted.  She pulled out his cigarettes and lit one for him, and then another for herself.  He gave her a questioning look and she shrugged. 

He watched her from the corner of his eye as she coughed and sputtered, but smoked the cigarette resolutely. 

“So what happens now?”  She asked and he sighed.

“I guess I’m leaving college again.  I’ll need a job to pay rent on a flat.”  He wiped his face slowly, “It’s a fucking mess.” 

“Maybe mum’ll let you stay at our place?  Just get a part time job to help out and still go to school?”  She said hopefully. 

“Maybe.”  He said with a tone that denoted he didn’t think it was a likely scenario.  “I’m sorry about losing me temper.”  He said in a low voice, “I been trying not to.  Been soothing it like you said… but…”

“No it’s alright.  I lost me temper too.”  She gave him a supportive grin. 

“I saw.”  He started to smile a little, “You are world class Rae Earl.”  He said with pure admiration and she lowered her eyes, blushing. 

“Can we swap seats?”  She asked holding up her shaking hands.  Finn looked down at his own shaking hands.

“Yeah ok.”  He jumped out and went round to her side and opened the door.

They sat in silence for a while, Finn wanting to calm his nerves before driving. 

He kept looking at her, unable to believe what she had done for him. 

“You protected me.”  He said softly, taking her hand. 

“Yeah.”  She saw how important this was to him, “we’re in this together, Finn.”  She kissed him as deeply as she could, trying to take all of him into her.  Trying to envelop him, to protect him, to hold him inside of her.

“Jesus.”  He breathed when she stopped.  The electricity between them was alight and her skin tingled with it.  She could tell by the slow deep breaths he was taking and the way his eyes moved that he felt it too. 

“Finn.”  She whispered.

_I’m going to say it._

_I’m going to tell him that I love him._

“Yeah?”  He asked breathlessly, his eyes moving from her mouth up to her eyes, his fingers tangled in her hair near her neck. 

_What if he don’t want to hear it?_

_What if you’re spoiling the moment?_

_What if he laughs?_

_Oh god!  What if he does laugh?_

_He won’t laugh._

_Tell him how you feel._

_Do it._

His lips were on hers again; a kiss that mirrored the one they’d just shared, but with Finn taking the lead, Finn pouring all his emotion into her. 

“Holy fuck.”  Rae whispered when he pulled away, a thin strand of spittle extending between their lips momentarily. 

“Rae?”  He asked softly.

“What?”  She could barely speak.  He hesitated, stroking her face looking at her mouth and then her eyes. 

“Are you still on it?”  His voice barely made a sound.  “I want’a make love to you.”  Rae paused, her mind taking time to catch up with what he’d said.

“Oh.”  She said softly, “um…”  She wiped her face and pulled back a little, “Yeah for a couple more days.”  He didn’t groan with frustration, he looked disappointed.  “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when it’s done.”  She tried to sooth that look.  He looked up at her, she saw regret in his eyes.

“Sorry.”  He furrowed his brows and looked down, biting the inside of his mouth.  “I don’t mean to pester you.  I just…” he reached out to her and she came closer, he shook his head, obviously frustrated with his inability to speak. 

“It’s alright.”  She touched his face, “I understand.”  She looked down, “I wanna have sex too.”  
“No, it’s not…”  He bit his lip.  “It’s not what I meant.”  He looked away. 

“It’s alright Finn.”  She kissed his fingertips, and he smiled slightly. 

“Sometimes I’m scared o’ what you’ll think about…”  He shook his head, “everything.”  He said softly, clearly not pleased with the words he’d chosen. 

“You shouldn’t be.”  She stroked his face.

“Alright.”  He breathed deeply.  “I’ll try to remember that in future.”  He gave her a stunning smile and stroked her face, she saw that look in his eyes and wondered if he’d meant to say ‘I love you’.

“You’re my world Rae.”  He said with a slight waver in his voice.   He looked down and then back up at her, “You’re everything.” 

She felt the words on her lips again but he took a deep breath and turned to the steering wheel.  She swallowed them down. 

_Now’s not the time._

_He just punched the shit out of his da and he’s very fragile._

_Give him a bit o’ time and space Rae._

_He don’t need emotional stuff at the moment._

_Talk about something else._

“D’you know Finn, I think I’d like to keep jogging.”  Rae mused as he drove them to her house.  He looked at her from the side of his eye as he slowed down for some small children crossing the road. 

“Alright girl, when are we going?”  His previous vulnerability slowing falling away from him. 

“You don’t have to come with me.”  She shook her head, “was there any point in me saying that?”

“None.”

“Mornings.”  Rae answered his question.  She fidgeted with her nails, “but I’m not… you know… I won’t be able to run as good as you.”  She looked at him, worried, embarrassed.  He shrugged.

“I gotta be better than you at something.”  He grinned and looked at her momentarily before he turned back to watch the kids crossing. 

“But I’ll just slow you down.”  She fretted but he shrugged.

“Then I’ll know what it feels like to be you.” 

“You don’t slow me down!”  She answered immutably and he turned a shy face to her.

“I still don’t get that Rosen-thingy play.” 

“I didn’t get it the first time I read it either.”  She put a hand on is thigh as he lit another cigarette, “stop being so hard on yourself.

“Oh aye.”  He grinned, “and you too.”

“Alright!”  She rolled her eyes and tried to conceal her grin. 

 

 

***

 

 

Karim watched Aiesha and listened to Rae.

“I know that mum wouldn’t like it, but I think it’s the best idea.”  She finished her request with a hopeful smile.  Karim nodded.

“He stay.” 

“He can stay.” Rae said gently and Karim smiled.  Since he had married Linda, Rae had been teaching him English on and off, mostly by repeating his sentences with all the missing words in place.  He had asked her to help with his English because she had a rudimentary understanding of French.  And this was the only way she knew how to.

“He can stay.”  Karim repeated.  He touched Rae’s face momentarily and looked up at Finn, scuffing his feet at the door.  “Is ok.”  He motioned for Finn to come in, “I talk to Linda”

“It is ok, I will talk to Linda.”  She said with a genuine, but exhausted smile.

“It is ok.  I will talk to Linda.”  He nodded, making sure he’d said everything right and Rae nodded in reply. 

“Thanks Karim.”  She looked down at Aiesha and gently picked her up. 

“What happened face?”  He asked concerned, looking at the bruise along her jaw and the slight graze.

“I tripped.”  She sighed; it was embarrassing talking about it.  Aiesha stirred slightly in Rae’s arms so she sung a soft lullaby to her and she continued sleeping peacefully.  She sat down on the lounge and Finn sat down next to her, looking at Rae holding Aiesha. 

_She is so beautiful._

_And fierce._

_And powerful._

He watched her pull faces at Aiesha as the baby opened her painfully blue eyes and looked up at her.  She took Aiesha’s hands and moved her arms up and down and talked to her.

“You’re strong.  And you’re perfect.  And you’re beautiful.  And you’re so clever.  Look at you figuring everything out.”  She said as Aiesha moved her mouth slightly. 

_She’ll make a perfect mother._

_Fierce and protective._

_Our babies will grow up knowing they’re loved.  And perfect._

_Our babies…_

_Fuck._

Finn looked down, smiling, embarrassed, as if Rae could read his mind.  He shyly raised his eyes, enchanted in how natural she was with Aiesha. 

“Where’s mum?”  She asked in a high pitched, loving tone as if she were talking to Aiesha.

“Shopping.”  Karim answered.

“That’s good isn’t it Aiesha?  Isn’t it?”  She stroked Aiesha’s head and blew a raspberry at her.

_I am going to spend the rest of my life with that woman._

Finn smiled, knowing that everything would be alright.  He’d figure it all out, even this trouble with his dad.  Because he had Rae.  She turned to look at him and saw the way he was looking at her.

“What are you thinking?”  She noticed that look in his eyes.  “You wanna hold her?”  She was suddenly struck by the idea.

“What?”  He looked panicked and she shook her head, amused.

“Here.”  She gently handed Aiesha to Finn, “Watch her head.”  Rae showed him how to support her head.  Karim watched, a sad smile on his face.  Finn looked down at the baby in his arms, every muscle in his body tense, terrified he’d drop her.  She moved her arm and yawned.

“Oh my god.”  He breathed as he watched her move. 

“Rachel il faut que je te parle de quelque chose.” Karim said softly and Rae looked up.

“What’d he say?”  Finn asked.

“He wants to talk about something?”  She told Finn and asked Karim simultaneously.  Karim nodded that she was right. 

“S'il te plaît viens dans la cuisine.”  Rae screwed up her face in thought and then got up, heading for the kitchen, Karim flowing.

“Where are you going?”  Finn panicked, Aiesha squirming in his arms. 

“The kitchen.”  She answered, “I think Karim wants to talk privately.

“Yes.”  Karim nodded, “private.”

“You can’t leave me with…” he looked down at the baby.  She was looking up at him adoringly.  He stared down at her beautiful blue eyes.

“You’ll be fine.”  Rae grinned and turned to go into the kitchen.  Karim lingered, watching Finn looking down at Aiesha.

“You natural.”  He said and nodded at Aiesha.  Finn grinned awkwardly and then quickly looked back down as she squirmed in his arms.  He bit his bottom lip in concentration and didn’t notice Karim leaving the room. 

Rae was making tea when he sat down at the table.

“Ton français est assez bon pour suivre?”  He asked and Rae had to really think for a while to put it all together.

“Um… my French is ok… but you’ll have to speak slower, or I won’t get it all.” 

“On va parler tour à tour français et anglais, d'accord?”

“Wait… slow down.”

“On va parler tour à tour français et anglais, d'accord?”  Karim repeated slower.

“Yeah, I understand the words English and French…”

“Both.”  Karim said.

“Ok, so we’ll use both?”  Rae nodded, “What’s on your mind?”  She asked, realising that this was obviously very important.  She sat down, forgetting the tea. 

“You mum…”  He said softly, “eh… eh… Linda pleure beaucoup en se moment et cela m'inquiète.”  He raised his hands to his eyes, “tears…” He said, “she cries.”

“And you’re worried.”  Rae understood.  “Me too.  I’ve heard her a couple o’ times now.”  Karim reached out to take her hand in comfort. 

“Je ne veux vraiment pas y aller.”  He lowered his eyes, looking worried, dejected. 

“I don’t know what to do either.”  Rae said.  Sometimes she understood his French based entirely just on the expression on his face.  She understood that worry tinged with helplessness.  He hadn’t needed to say anything for her to understand.  He looked down at their hands.

“Elle semble tellement triste.”  He said sadly. 

“Um…”  Rae translated in her head at what seemed to be a glacial pace.  “She sad?”  She decided that was the closest she’d get to what he’d said.  He nodded. 

“Elle a même perdu le goût de la vie”

“Life… mum’s… not interested…”

“In life.”  Karim nodded. 

“She sounds depressed.”  Rae said sadly.  Why hadn’t she figured this out sooner?

“Depressed…?”  Karim didn’t know the word.

“Really, really, really sad.”  Rae explained as best she could.  Karim nodded.

“Linda depressed.”  He agreed. 

“Linda is depressed.”  Rae corrected without thought, but Karim did not repeat what she said. 

“Connaîs-tu quelqu'un à qui nous pouvons en parler?” 

“Um…”  Rae tied to think, “Nope, you’ll have to repeat it.”  She shook her head.

“Talk someone… Connaîs-tu quelqu'un à qui nous pouvons en parler?”

“Oh right… um… well I guess the hospital would know someone or even have someone she could talk to.”  Rae answered.

“Merci.”  He said gratefully.

“I could always ask Kester if he knows anyone…”  Rae mused. 

“S'il te plaît ne t'inquiète pas à propos de ça.  No worry.”  He said, deeply concerned for her.

“But I have to worry, Karim.  She’s my mum.”  She squeezed his hand, “I’ll talk to Kester.”  He shook his head in reply.

“Je vais m'en occupier.  My job.”  He added.

“I know it’s your job.  But she’s my mum… can’t I help you take care of her?”

“Tu as assez de soucis Rachel.”  His eyes strayed to the bin full of flowers. 

“Yeah I know.”  She replied staring at the wilting blooms but thinking about Gary and Finn.  “A whole lot to worry about.”  She agreed. 

“Depuis que tu es parti, il n'a fait qu'envoyer des fleurs.”  Karim stood up and pushed the flowers deeper into the bin.  “Flowers.  Every day.”  He repeated in English for emphasis.  “You worry flowers.”  He said firmly.  “I worry Linda.”   

“Alright.”  Rae nodded slowly, not sure that she really agreed with this.  But she could see that Karim’s mind was quite made up, and she really did have so many other things to worry about. 

“I ring hospital.”  He smiled with a determined air.  She gave him a supportive hug and he smiled that sad smile she had seen earlier. 

“I better go rescue Finn.”  She told him and he agreed with a nod.

“I make tea.”  He said as she left the kitchen.

As she entered the lounge room she stopped and watched Finn.  He was softly talking to Aiesha and she was making soft gurgling noises at him, each one eliciting a sound of amazement and encouragement from him.  He stroked her head, his soft, but animated monologue not ceasing.  Aiesha bounced her arms slightly.

“Now that‘s a right proper way to move y’arms!”  He whispered to her, “Throw ‘em round!  Get into it little one.”  Rae didn’t want to move, she just wanted to watch him, but a key in the door told her that her mum was home so went to the front door to help her.

“Oh Rae.”  Linda said distractedly.  “I thought you were at Finn’s.”  She looked up, “What happened to your face?”

“Um… tripped over, let me help you with the groceries mum.”  She decided to let Karim talk to her about Finn staying over, like he said he would.  Linda looked over at Finn holding Aiesha. 

“Staying for dinner Finn?”  She looked exhausted. 

“I’ll cook.”  He said, seeing how tired she was.

“What could you possibly cook?”

“Quite a bit actually.”  He grinned.  Linda looked at the way he held her baby.

“You’re a natural at that.”  She said softly.  “Hope you’re as good at cooking.”  She started to walk through the lounge room and stopped.  “Are you staying tonight?”  She asked Rae.

“I miss me own bed mum.” 

“What about this stalker?”  Her face clouded with concern.  “Karim goes to work in an hour.  It’ll just be us girls.”

“I’m staying too.”  Finn said softly, keeping his tone light as he spoke down to Aiesha.  Linda considered this.

“That’s not for you to say.”  She answered wearily.

“I’ll sleep on the floor the hallway, with Rae’s door open, if that’s it takes.  But I’ll not let her out me sight.”  He said firmly, but still as if he were talking to the baby.  “Isn’t that right little one?”  He said adoringly to Aiesha who gurgled happily in response. 

“That won’t be necessary.”  She said softly.  “Just make sure you both get enough sleep.”  She turned to the kitchen, Rae trying to take bags from her.  “No it’s fine pet, go play with your sister.  See if she needs a change please.” 

“Alright.”  Rae sat down next to Finn.

“A change?”  He asked.

“Her nappy.”

“Oh right.”  He pulled a face.  “You’re a wee bit disgusting little one.’  He said in a sweet voice to Aiesha. 

“Little one?”  Rae asked amused.

“Well, she’s little.”  He blew a raspberry at her and she gurgled again.  “It’s not as hard as I thought it would be.”  He grinned.

“You have no idea!”  Rae thought back to those first few weeks. 

“No, but I will have one day.”  He smiled up at her. 

“You wanna check the nappy?”

“Alright.” 

She taught him how to check the nappy and Linda wondered back in, watching for a moment before she spoke.

“If I’m letting you sleep in her bed whenever you want, I think it’s about time I met your parents Finn.”

 

 

 

_ ‘Purple Sneakers’ by You Am I _

 

That morning Karim had let Finn use his chin up bar and Rae had looked on, finally understanding her mother’s obsession with that particular exercise and cursing her period. 

Finn had dropped Rae off at school, waiting to make sure she got into the building ok before driving off, he had a free period first up and he drove home to gather Rae’s things and a bag of his own things at a time when he knew his dad would be at work. 

He looked at the glass, holding the few specks of ash from his mother’s letter and took a good long time to really let himself feel everything that he had been holding in check with regards to his father.  There was a lot of anger and resentment still, but his one true emotion after all of this was regret. 

He sighed with that realisation and looked up at his clock.

_Oh shit!_

He hurried back to get to his new English class on time.  With all the drama of yesterday, he hadn’t had chance to tell Rae that he’d be joining her English class.  It messed up a few of his free periods, and one of his PE classes was on during this class, but Elsa had seen to it that both teachers were aware of the issue, and he was to miss English once a week, since it didn’t count to his A levels this year. 

The class was already mostly seated when he walked in, a few giggles started, not because Finn was repeating.  The fact that Finn, the fittest lad in school, had been missing for a few months, was well known.  It was expected that he’d have to repeat.  The giggles came from 1st year girls getting to see him up close as he sauntered in, his eyes searching for Rae.  There were several spare seats and he hoped there’d be one next to Rae.

Going out with Rae had done nothing to lower Finn’s status.  Indeed, amongst most of the girls he was more revered than ever.  As for the lads; it had made them all look at Rae differently.  What was she offering him that other girls didn’t or couldn’t?  The lads didn’t view Finn differently, he’d always been a bit of an enigma.  But a cool enigma.  And that hadn’t changed. 

Finn barely noticed the giggles and stares.  He saw that there was a spare seat next to Rae.  She hadn’t seen him; she was explaining something to Chloe, both girls looking at a book seriously.

_That’s my smart girl.  Always teaching everyone._

He smiled as soon as he saw her.  And scooted through the desks to sit next to her.  She still hadn’t seen him, it was the frenetic girl chatter that made her and Chloe look up, and she noticed someone sitting next to her, she turned and saw Finn smiling at her.

“What are you doing here?”  She said, deeply confused.

“Nice to see you too.”  He laughed. 

“I didn’t mean it like that… I just…”  Behind her, Chloe lowered her eyes and looked off.

“Elsa convinced me that I wanted to do advanced English.”

“But you hate English.”

“I know… I’m pretty sure she drugged me.”  He joked and Rae laughed.  “Anyway, this is a little bit of pre-course so I’m ready for the real thing next year.”  He shrugged.  Rae noticed the girls chattering and the way they all stole glimpses at Finn and tried to ignore it.  That kind of stuff happened all the time. 

“That’s brilliant.”  She said with a grin.  “Have you got the books?”  He shook his head.

“I am gonna fail this class.”  He said with a grim smile. 

“No you won’t.”  Rae shook her head.  “This is Utopia, by Sir Thomas More…”

“What’s Utopia mean?”

“Like an ideal world.”  Rae said.

“So dystopia, is the opposite.”  Rae nodded. 

“Catching on quick Finlay.”  He raised his eyebrows sceptically and chuckled at her. 

“This is 1984 by George Orwell.”  She handed him another book.  “And this is the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.”  She handed that one over too.  “These are the required reading.  And then there’s Huxley’s Brave New world and Plato’s Republic as secondary texts.  But it’s best to read them too, even though they’re not required.”

“I’m definitely going to fail.”  He took the three books and turned them over in his hands.

“No you won’t.”  Rae countered, “I’ll help you, and 1984 is one of my favourite books.”  She grinned.  He looked down at it.

“Is it like Rosen-thingy?”

“Not really no.” 

“So how long do I have to read these?”

“We’re supposed to have already read them.  I have, so you can share mine until you get your own.”

“How d’you find the time?”  He looked at 1984, “this is more books than I’ve read in me whole life.”

“You’ll be fine.” 

Mrs Vines entered the room and closed the door, she rifled through some notes and the class settled down.  Finn saw Chloe staring off and decided he would make a small effort to make her feel less uncomfortable.

“Hi Chloe.”  She turned, surprised he’d said anything to her at all.

“Hi.”  She answered softly.  After the way he’d yelled at her, she never expected him to say another word to her.  She felt that she deserved the way he’d yelled at her.  She didn’t deserve for either of them to talk to her again. 

“Alright?”  She asked him.  Finn pursed his lips slightly, thinking, he would not forget to be on his guard around her at all times; to maintain a distance. 

“Yep.”  He answered and turned his eyes down to the books Rae had given him.  Finn read the back cover of 1984, trying to get a feel for the book.  They‘d be discussing it in this class and he’d never read it.  He had a lot to catch up on.  He looked over at Rae’s notes and pulled out the subject guide from her folder, reading the essay questions, his mouth open in a kind of horror.  He didn’t even understand the essay questions. 

_Oh fuck._

He sighed and looked at the back cover again.

“So we were discussing the use of Newspeak and Doublethink as a two-pronged approach to maintaining control over the populace of Oceania.  How do they do this?  Phillip?”  Finn’s eyes narrowed as he turned to see Phillip sitting with a friend on the other side of the room.  He hadn’t realised Phillip took this class.

“Newspeak actively destroys words.”  He answered, “By diminishing the language that people can use to express thoughts, you diminish the thoughts.” 

_Wait what?_

Finn saw Rae nodding her head in agreement and took a minute to think about what Phillip had said.

_Right…_

_So they’re getting rid of words…_

_And if you don’t have the words to think the thoughts – you won’t think ‘em._

_Ok._

_We’re ok._

_So far._

_Fuck I hope that’s right._

He became aware that the class conversation had moved on, Rae was speaking.

“It’s more complicated because Newspeak is something that’s done by others and it’s handed out, like a law almost, you know?  But Doublethink you have to do in your own head.  You have to have these two contradictory thoughts, and there’s no cognitive dissonance, you utterly believe them.”  Finn felt his mouth drop. 

“But why is it important?”

“It’s an effective way of controlling the past, present and future, as is shown by the way past newspaper articles are constantly changed.  Making Big Brother seem omnipotent.”  Rea answered, “People can have the proof in their hands that Oceania was at war with Eurasia, but because the current lie is that we’ve always been at peace with them, you have to believe both things – both were always true…”  Rae shook her head, “it’s genius because the population are involved in their own mind control and brainwashing.  They become invested in it because of that.” 

“I think they’re invested in it because they’re afraid of being tortured by their government, not because they are involved in their own oppression.”  A blond haired girl countered Rae’s argument.  Finn felt utterly bewildered. 

“Do you think it’s almost a type of Stockholm Syndrome?”  Rae asked her as they sought to explore the topic further together.

“Not really.”  The girl answered.  She began to elaborate but Finn felt himself just trying to catch up with what Rae had said.  He had known that Rae was smart, but he had no idea she was this smart.  He saw Phillip grinning sadistically at him and frowned slightly as he let his mind work over what Rae had said. 

“What do you think Finn?”  Mrs Vines looked at him expectantly.  Mrs Rikkon had never allowed discussion and debate like this in his English class, she just told them what to think. 

“I think Rae’s right.”  He said slowly. 

“And why is that?’  Mrs Vines asked gently.  Finn heard Phillip snigger but he tried to focus on the thought forming in his head.

“I might be way off base, cos I haven’t had chance to read the book yet.  But if I understand what Doublethink is aright, then it seems to me that we all do Doublethink for real, like we oppress ourselves,” Finn hoped he was using all of these words correctly and not making an arse of himself, “and we’re all really invested in doing it.”  He said slowly as he gathered his thoughts, “like how we tell girls that they can’t be sluts but they can’t be frigid.”  Mrs Vines raised her eyebrows slightly, “like that shit really messes with girls, you know?  And we’re all so invested in it, we’re keeping it going, even though it’s ridiculous, right?  You think about it and you know this.  Cos they contradict each other – you know they can’t both be right.  But you believe both anyway.”  Finn bit his bottom lip, “and like we also all believe that we gotta fit in and not be weird or an outcast… but we all also want’a be an individual and different.  And we all believe both of those things completely.”  He thought for a minute about the debate Rae and the blond girl had just had, “And no government is gonna come and torture us if we stop believing in the slut, frigid thing are they?  But we won’t stop.  Cos it what we was taught growing up.  And people don’t like to think they been lied to.  It makes them feel unsafe.”  He spoke from personal experience, “so it’s easier to just believe this shite.  People wanna believe it cos it’s kinda safe… what they know… what they’re used to.  That’s why they’re invested.  That’s why they keep doing it, even though they know on some level… you know?”  Finn stopped and blushed, “but I’m not sure I get it yet cos I haven’t read it.”  He looked down and took a deep breath.

“Oh I think you get it just fine.”  Mrs Vines said.  “Can anyone else think of contemporary real world examples of Doublethink?” 

Finn looked over at Rae and she was beaming at him.

“Told you.”  She whispered.  He smiled hesitantly and made himself focus again; if he didn’t pay close attention, he’d lose the thread of what was happening, and he really didn’t want to do that; this was actually interesting.

 

 

As the class was milling out for break Mrs Vines pulled Finn and Rae aside. 

“Rae I’m going to drop the requirement for this week’s minor assignments for you – I want you to spend that time catching Finn up instead?”  Rae nodded.  Mrs Vines when through her desk and pulled out a stack of notes.  “Help him do the major essay he’s missed, and whatever grade I give him for that, I’ll give you for the weekly assignment you’re missing out on ok?” 

“You want him to do the one on critical essay writing?”

“Yes.”  Mrs Vines replied, “And here are my class notes on what we’ve covered on Utopian and Dystopian novels so far.”

“Alright.”  Rae nodded.  Mrs Vines turned to Finn.

“Elsa tells me you’re much smarter than you think you are.”  Finn shrugged and lowered his eyes.  “There’s no time for you to be modest or unsure of yourself.  You’re already six months behind.”  She said firmly and Finn scrunched up his face in concern. 

_Oh god, I’ve made a mistake doing this haven’t I?_

“So you better start trusting yourself and those instincts, because they paid off today.”  Finn looked up at her, surprised, “So far, I believe Elsa is right about you.”  She handed the notes to him, “you’ve got a week to do this full catch up and then I’ll expect even better input from you, understood?”

“I…”  Finn hesitated, “6 months of work in a week?”

“You don’t need to catch up on everything, I trust Rae to know what’s important for you to know.”

“I’m not sure I can get it all done.”  He said finally.

“Finn, I have been doing this job for 34 years and in that time I have learned to gauge minds and students very well.”  She looked piercingly at him, “I do set the bar very high, and you will have to work to reach my standards, make no mistakes.  I expect a lot from my students.  And you are one of my students now.”  She was silent for a moment, letting that sink in.  “But trust me when I say I have never yet set that bar too high for a student to get over it.  You might think it’s too high, but I know it’s not.”  She said resolutely.  “You have a keen and capable mind.  You will get this work done and not only that, you will get it done easier than you thought you would and with time to spare.  Understood?”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“It’s Mrs Vines.”  She said firmly, “and you’re dismissed.”

“Thanks Mrs Vines.”  Rae said taking the notes from Finn and heading to the door.

“You’re welcome Rae.  I look forward to seeing the results of your teaching.”  She turned to her desk and Finn followed Rae out the door, slightly shell-shocked. 

 

 

He had started reading 1984 in the break; his hand unconsciously tracing out words and passages from the book on Rae’s thigh while her and Archie and Izzy joked, with Chloe sitting quietly, smiling almost happily.  His eyes devoured the words, his mind followed the plot fairly easily; so far Rae’s favourite book was far easier to understand than her favourite play.  He didn’t notice Archie giving him a strange look and turning to Rae for an explanation, but he did hear Rae’s response.

“Got a week to catch up on 6 months of work.”  She told them, and he heard the sounds of sympathy Archie made before he allowed his focus to return to the book and its drab grey world and the only character he’d met in this world so far: Winston.  When it was time to head back in for science, he put 1984 in his back pocket, all of Rae’s other books were carefully put in his bag and he walked her to her class.

“Everyone always talks about Big Brother watching… I didn’t know it were from a book.”  He said thoughtfully.

“Well yeah.”  Rae said softly, “the lexicon of 1984 has made it into our modern vernacular.”  She said effortlessly and Finn frowned, she saw his face and smiled.  “Mrs Vines said that last week.”  She explained, “I had to look up lexicon and vernacular.”  She laughed.  Finn chuckled.

“I’m glad it’s not just me.” 

“It’s not.”  She reassured him, “advanced English is hard.  But it’s more interesting.  It gets me thinking.  I like that.”

“Aye.”  Finn agreed, feeling 1984 burning a hole in his back pocket; he actually wanted to read it.  He kissed her at the door to her classroom and headed off to science.

“How’d she get the bruise?”  Finn looked over to see that Phillip had taken up step beside him.  “I noticed it right away.  And all the scratches.  Were just waiting for the right time to ask you.”  Finn stopped walking and turned to Phillip.

“You are asking for trouble.”  Finn said in a low, dangerous voice.

“No, I’m asking if you hit her.”  Phillip continued, unperturbed.  “You think I just got a crush, but I actually care about her.  She’s a good lass.  And she don’t deserve a twat like you.” 

“Well that’s her choice isn’t it?”  Finn’s mouth twisted upwards.

“You expect me to believe that you respect her choices?”  Phillip asked honestly, “you’re so jealous and controlling.”  He shook his head, “did she get all banged up trying to get away from you?”

“Fuck off Phil.”  Finn turned to walk away.

“Oh, you remember my name now don’t you?”  He asked defiantly.  Finn turned back to him. 

“You need to back the fuck off boy.”  Finn threatened.

“Or what?”  Phillip said with a grin, “hit me, and you’ll upset her, and you know it.  Because the only person that can tell me to get out of Rae’s life is Rae.  And she hasn’t said that.”

“Not yet.” 

“You gonna make her say it?”

“I don’t need to.  She’ll see you for what y’are in her own time.”  Finn started to walk away.

“I heard you cheated on her.”  Phillip called after him.  Finn turned again, his eyes narrowed.  “Made out with her best mate.”  He derided.

_How could he possibly know that?_

_The only time we’ve talked about it was at my place, and here when we told Izzy, but the hall was empty when we did that._

“Are you fucking stalking her?”  Finn asked violently, closing the distance between himself and Phillip in an instant, his fist closed around the collar of Phillip’s shirt.

“Finn?”  Ms Verna asked from the door of her classroom.  Finn let go of Phillip’s shirt and noted the look of fear on his face with savage satisfaction. 

“To be fucking continued.  Phillip.”  Finn said softly and walked away, heading into his science class. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Slip Slide Melting’ by For Love Not Lisa _

 

“I hope you don’t mind?”  Finn looked supremely uncomfortable and Elsa raised her eyebrows looking at Rae sitting in the car. 

“Rae’s mother called the school to tell us what happened.  I understand why you brought her.  I don’t mind.  But it looks to me like you do.”  Finn sighed. 

“I just um…”  He scratched his eyelid softly and sucked his bottom lip.  “You know…” He fidgeted.  Elsa looked back over at Rae.

“She’s worried about what you‘re saying.”  Finn resisted the urge to turn and look, “Stop fidgeting, it makes you look like you’re guilty of something.  And you’re not.”  Finn took a deep breath. 

“It’s just that, you are…” he looked everywhere but at Elsa, “I dunno…”  he shook his head and Elsa waited for him to find his words, “I feel close to you and I don’t want her to worry.”  He said finally, “cos she got nothing to worry about… but she always worries anyway.”

“Well you’re making her worry now because of your actions.”  Elsa said as she motioned for Rae to come in.  “If she has nothing to worry about, act like it.”  She finished as Rae got out of the car.

“Come in I’ll make you a cuppa.”  Elsa said as Rae approached the house, carrying her bag.  Finn was loaded up with paint and his equipment. 

His eye fell to the door the minute Elsa closed it.  He remembered slamming Elsa into that door viciously.  Rae was standing near that door now.

_This is gonna do me head in._

Finn quickly turned away and went to the laundry to put the paint there and retrieve the undercoat and sandpaper.  Without a word he went to the spare bedroom and pulled out the set of drawers.  He had laid down the newspaper before Rae found him. 

“Elsa’s on the phone.”  She said as she sat down on the bed.  “Big fucking hole!”  She laughed at the patched up hole as Finn stripped down to his singlet. 

“You have to make ‘em bigger to fix ‘em.”  He said and lit a cigarette.

“She got a nice house.”  Rae got comfortable on the bed.

“Yeah.”  Finn said as he went through his bag to find his sanding block.

“Izzy said that if she were single she might have at a girl like Elsa!”  Rae joked. 

“Well that came outta fucking nowhere.”  Finn shook his head. 

“But she’s right.”  Rae persisted.  “Girls like Janice and Elsa… they make a girl question her sexuality!”  Rae laughed.

“Ha!”  Finn laughed awkwardly and wrapped the sandpaper around the block. 

“If I weren’t with you… I’d probably have a bit of a crush on her.”  Rae grinned and Finn cleared his throat.

“Is that right?”  Finn started sanding the patched up hole feeling his insides churn.  He’d done things to Elsa, and now Rae was talking about how attractive she was.  This was not ok. 

“But I am with you… so my latent bisexual tendencies will never be explored.”  She mock lamented and Finn scoffed, his heart hammering in his chest when he thought back to what he had done in this house.  “Unless of course we go for a threesome!”  She said in mock seriousness.

“What?”  Finn’s voice hit a higher octave than he would have like and he stopped sanding and turned to her.

“Threesome?”  Rae joked.

“I don’t think so.”  Finn turned back to the sanding and scrubbed the wall furiously. 

“But isn’t that every guy’s fantasy though?”  Her voice had a slight undertone of vulnerability, but mostly she was genuinely curious about what Finn wanted sexually, even something like this.  Finn sighed, trying to sound disinterested and desperately tried to stop his mind from going to where it was inevitably heading; images of Rae and Elsa kissing.  He stopped that thought immediately.  And knew he’d have to answer Rae so he turned to her, thinking about what to say.

“It don’t matter, Elsa don’t fuck students.”  He said with a grin, thinking he’d successfully deflected the topic.  He started to turn back to the wall but saw Rae’s eyes narrow.

“How d’you know that?”

In his mind, Finn saw Elsa come strolling in, telling Rae that he knew because she’d told him that when he’d tried to fuck her.  But that didn’t happen and Rae went on, “I know lots o’ teachers have sex with their students.”  Finn shrugged, trying to look natural and unaffected by this conversation.

“I just know Elsa got good morals.”  He said softly. 

“Alright well… not with Elsa… but… would you want…”  Rae’s voice was more vulnerable now, not playing around.  “Would you want’a do that?”

“What’s brought this up Rae?”  Finn asked, still not wanting to answer, his mind forcing images of Rae and Elsa into his head.  He stopped sanding to focus on getting rid of that idea; his teeth gritting in a whole new kind of frustration.

_Thanks for putting that thought in me head, Rae._

“Chloe’s got-”

“Oh fucking Chloe, Right.”  He shook his head and went back to sanding.

“Not her!  Her magazine!  Was talking about male fantasies and stuff.”

“Right.”  Finn didn’t turn around, he kept sanding and smoking moodily.  Rae had talked about shit in Chloe’s magazines before.  It was never a fun experience.

“Said that most men want their girls to make out with other girls… and you know… have threesomes with two girls.”  Rae watched his back as he worked, his arms flexing, his body simply perfect.  she was looking for a sign of what he really thought.  “Do you want that…?” She prodded carefully.  Finn turned to her and leaned against the wall.  “Have you ever thought about it?”  She added.

“Yes.”  He said honestly, “I’ve thought about it.”  He had decided a while ago that he would not lie to Rae as much as possible. 

“Do you wanna do it?”

“I honestly don’t know.”  He said. “Part of me is disgusted by the idea of anyone touching you apart from me.”  He sucked on his cigarette, “and part of me isn’t interested in other girls, and I don’t want ‘em touching me.”  He looked at her and smiled guiltily, “but part of my thinks ‘bloody hell – threesome!  Yes please!’ ” She laughed and he was relieved by her response. 

“What about with two boys?”  She asked and Finn screwed up his face in consideration. 

“Well… again; don’t want other people touching you.  Not sure how I feel about lads touching me.”  He paused for a moment, “but if you wanted to… I… dunno…” he shrugged, “it’s still a threesome!”  He laughed.  “But it’s not something that…” He paused thinking, “it’s not something that I wanna do right now.”  He said finally. “Like maybe in 50 years time when I’ve finished doing all the different things that I want’a do to you… then we can consider it.”  She grinned.

“50 years?”

“Oh aye.”  He said with a dirty grin, “I gotta lot of experimenting to do with you Miss Earl.”

“I like how perverted y’are.”  She said saucily and he sighed.

“You still on it aren’t you?”  She nodded.  “Fucking hell.  Will it ever end?”  He turned back to the sandpapering and sighed in sexual frustration.  “Stop reading Chloe’s magazines!”  He laughed.

“Well I gotta get in your head somehow.”  She said, “I never would o’ thought to ask about it if I hadn’t read it.”

“Oh fuck… fine… read them all and torture me with them!”  He chuckled.   

“I will.”

Elsa sauntered in the room with two cups of tea for them, just as Rae was about to speak again. 

“How are you holding up with this wanker stalking you?”  She asked directly, as she sat down in the chair and lit a cigarette. 

“Alright.  Finn’s looking after me.”

“Good.”  She replied, “as soon as I heard I just thought, oh god men are gross.”  Finn didn’t even bother to feel offended, he knew that she meant particular men; the kind of men that would do this.  And he agreed.

“Could it be a girl?”  Rae asked, the thought having just occurred to her.

“Unlikely.”  Elsa said with sigh, “it does happen though.”  Finn finished sanding and turned to see Elsa leaning back in her chair her long legs extended to be up on the set of drawers he’d moved, a cigarette held to her lips and Rae, leaning forward, a glorious flash of cleavage showing over her top, her full lips slightly parted as she thought.

The image of them kissing came to him again.  Kissing and turning to him, inviting him in.

“We’ll be out of your hair soon.”  He said to Elsa with gritted teeth as he opened the undercoat and started to prep for painting.  Furious at his mind for not letting it go.  This was a thought he’d never had before.  And now that it was there, it was staying put.

_Ugh.  Fucking Chloe’s magazines._

_Fucking threesomes._

_With Rae and Elsa._

_Fuck._

_It’s alright, just don’t think about it, don’t try to force it out o’ your head, that’ll just make it stay._

_Be calm._

_Fuck Rae’s tits look good in that top._

Finn looked up at Rae’s chest again, she was taking a breath and the round curvature of them was straining at top of her shirt.

_Bloody hell._

His eyes stayed, transfixed on her breasts, moving as she breathed in and out. 

“I don’t mind.  I actually wanted to talk to you Rae.  I got these friends, Scott, Richard and Wanda… and I wonder if you’d like to meet them.”  Finn furrowed his eyebrows as Elsa spoke, bringing him out of his reverie.

_Isn’t she fucking them…?_

_What?_

“They run a Shakespeare festival in London at the end of every year, and they’re adding a run of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.  But they’re doing a gender bender version, and they need someone to play their Rosencrantz.  I think you’d do an excellent job, and I’d count the performance towards your second year grade.”  She said hopefully. 

“Oh I dunno.”  Rae said, obviously tempted. 

“They’re doing rehearsals once a week on a Friday night.”

“I couldn’t get to London.”

“They agreed to do it here if you audition for the role and get it.”

“I hate performing.”  Rae said softly.

“But you love that play.”  Finn watched on, impressed at Elsa’s ability to tempt people into doing things.  He noticed Rae, silent, considering, unsure.  He knew she’d love it and it’d be good for her.

“You was right about me in English.”  Finn said softly. 

“I know.”

“I’ve already read half o’ 1984 and I only been in the class one day!”  Elsa smiled knowingly and turned her eyes back to Rae.

“Maybe I’ll give it a go.”  She said softly. 

“I can help out backstage, yeah?”  Finn asked, helping Rae feel more confident about her decision. 

“I’ll be doing the stage direction and I will need a few stage hands.”

“Count me in.”  Finn smiled.

“But I’d rather have you play Gertrude.  I think they’re renaming her Gerry.”  Finn froze.  “I’m joking, they’ve already cast all the male actors.”  He let out a big breath and Elsa laughed at him.

“Stage hand it is then.”  He shook his head. 

“You looked so terrified!”  Rae laughed.

“Aye!  Gertrude speaks in Shakespearean… I’d never remember them lines!”  Finn laughed.

Elsa gave Rae more details about the play and Finn rolled on a layer of undercoat.

“Elsa,” Rae asked as Elsa finished writing down a few phone numbers, “why d’you have a tattoo of grass on your ankle?”  Elsa looked down at her left inner ankle at the tattoo and smiled sadly. 

“For a lot of my early life Rae, I suffered a lot of abuse and my body was not my own.”

“I’m sorry.”  Rae said softly.

“Don’t be.”  Elsa shook her head.  “When I reached my lowest point, after all these things had happened to me, I realised that I was still standing.  Somehow.”  She lit another cigarette.  “So I ditched the guy who was half starving me to try and get me into a size 6 dress and decided that I owned my own body.  And no one else would ever own it but me.”  She smiled retrospectively, “I was walking down the street, with everything I owned in two suitcases, an empty stomach and frail, tiny body and I saw this little bit of grass, growing through the fucking concrete!”  She grinned, her eyes still seeing the past, “and I knew I was like that grass.  I can grow anywhere.  Nothing will stop me.  I’m indestructible.”  She looked at Rae, “so with the last of my money, I reclaimed my body, by marking it with this tattoo of grass.”  She looked down at it, “I have several tattoos now.  They’re like my armour.  They remind me that my body is mine to do with what I want, and no one can take it from me.  No matter what.”

“You‘re so beautiful.”  Rae breathed, moved by her story. 

“So are you Rae!”  She smiled honestly. 

Finn bit the inside of his mouth and decided to do a second coat even though he knew he shouldn’t.  Rae shook her head, but not with the same level of disbelief she used to always have. 

“People call me ugly all the time.”  Rae said softly. 

“But you’re not.  And people that say otherwise are wrong.” 

“Everyone says otherwise.”  Rae said softly and Elsa’s eyes went to Finn, who had turned around.

“We both know that’s not true.”  Rae opened her mouth to speak but Elsa shook her head “There was a time Rae, that most people thought that the earth was flat.  They were wrong.  Just because most people think something – it doesn’t mean they’re right.”  She looked over at Finn who was packing up grumpily.  “But it will take a long time for you to really know that.”  She said meaningfully and Finn nodded slightly, understanding.  Rae lowered her eyes, feeling guilty about what she’d said because of how hard Finn worked to tell her she was beautiful.  She thought back to what she’d said to Kester; she was always throwing everything Finn did for her, back in his face.

“Do you know, I used to get called ugly all the time.”  Rae scoffed in disbelief but Elsa kept going, “I was called ugly when I was fatter than I am now, when I was thinner than I am now, and I still get called ugly as I am right now.  It doesn’t matter what you look like, someone will call you ugly.”

“I’ve only ever seen guys drooling over you.”  Rae disagreed.

“Well since I’ve been confident in myself that is something that happens a lot more.  People that used to call me ugly now think I’m not, even though nothing’s changed about me.  And those that still do think I’m ugly, well I’m not here to please everyone am I?  I’ve got one life and I want to live it for myself.”  She drew on her cigarette.  Rae looked up at her.

“Thanks Elsa.”

Finn held his tongue and left the room to clean the roller brush. 

“I’m gonna have to apologise to him.”

“No you won’t.”  Elsa smiled, “He gets it.”  She explained, “He gets you.”

 

 

They hadn’t said a word about the things she’d said at Elsa’s.  They just fallen into bed when they’d gotten back to her place.  Finn spent an hour kissing her lips and whispering gently to her; telling her everything about her that was beautiful, from her eyes, to the curve other stomach to the compassion she had for others. 

As she lay there, his lips either on hers or just millimetres from hers telling her how beautiful she was, Rae realised that this was making love in the most pure sense.  And that every word he said was a declaration of his love for her.  Every time he stroked her hair, he said ‘I love you Rae, I need you Rae, stay with me Rae’. 

Her mind stayed still, stayed focussed on his face, on his voice, on his smell, as he made love to her in a way that she had never experienced; with just words. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Loco’ by Coal Chamber _

 

Finn’s mouth travelled urgently down her neck as a hand went up her top, she groaned, her whole body aching for him.  He groaned louder.

“I want you so fucking bad.”  He breathed, she moaned in sympathy.

“Get off each other you two.”  Chop tapped Finn in the lower back and Finn had to force himself to stop kissing her. 

“Warm up!”  Chop threw the gloves at Finn and he caught them and turned to Rae to give her another kiss before heading over to Chop.  Izzy and Chloe dawdled over looking very unimpressed.

“I didn’t even know that there was 5am.”  Izzy yawned and sat down on the floor.  Chloe plonked down beside her, bleary eyed and unimpressed. 

Rae stayed standing, watching with furrowed brows how hard Finn was punching the pads Chop was holding.

“Fuck!  Alright mate!”  Chop made him stop and shook out his hand.  “Fuck.  That hurt.” 

“Pads up!”  Finn ordered and Chop gave him a glare.

“Sure you don’t want the bag?”

“Nope.  Let’s spar.”  Finn sunk down into a fighting stance and stretched his neck.

“Not if you’re gonna punch that fucking hard.”  Chop complained.

“C’mon!”  Finn goaded him and Chop got some gloves.

“Alright then.”  Chop bent his knees slightly, standing side facing to Finn, his fists raised. 

“Ready?”  Finn asked.  And Chop nodded. 

A fast, brutal and high energy sparring session followed.  Finn bloodied Chop’s mouth and copped a hard kidney punch for it.  Chop threw a punch and Finn ducked it, swinging in to punch Chop’s ribs.  Hard.  Chop backed up and took a moment to get his breath, maintaining eye contact and fighting stance. 

“What the fuck’s up your arse?”  He asked and then he feigned a punch but instead used his leg to sweep Finn’s legs out from under him; a move Finn had taught Chop and Archie only a few days ago.  Finn hit the ground hard but was up like a shot, a high kick aimed at Chop’s head barely blocked, driving Chop to his knees.

“Ok, no kicking!”  Izzy called.

“You heard her.”  Chop said and Finn nodded in agreement. 

Archie wandered over and watched the fierce fighting continue.  Both Finn and Chop were sweating, grunting with the force of their punches.  But Chop was yet to land a good one on Finn’s face. 

“What the fuck’s going on?”

“This is what happens when you’re late and we’re forced to wait.”  Izzy hit his shin. 

“I don’t see how this is my fault.”

“Well Finn seems to be in a pretty shitty mood.”  Chloe said and Izzy and Archie looked at her then up to Rae.  Chloe realised that she shouldn’t be noticing Finn and looked down. 

“It’s alright.”  Rae said, “He is in a shitty mood.”  Rae thought about the fight with his father and thought Finn still had a lot to work through. 

“You still on it?”  Archie asked, figuring that Finn was working out his sexual frustrations.

“What?”  Rae turned to him and Archie realised what a big mistake he’d made.

“I mean…” Izzy shook her head, but Chloe didn’t hear, she was too busy trying to feel ok with being around both Finn and Rae. 

“Did he tell you?”  She said in shock.  Archie could only nod his head. “FINN NELSON!”  She yelled at him and he turned his worried face to her the minute he heard her.  Chop was mid-way through throwing a punch when Finn turned to Rae, and he landed it on the side of Finn’s head knocking him to the ground.  Everyone gasped and Rae rushed over to him as he sat up and tried to clear his head by shaking it.  He put a hand to where Chop had hit him. 

“That was a good one.”  He looked up at Chop and then to Rae.  “I’m alright.”

“I’m sorry!”  She said with panic and he shook his head with a grin, “wait, no I’m not – you told Archie!”

“Told Archie what?”  She glared at him, not wanting to say it.  They sat in silence, giving each other a look, Finn confused, Rae willing him to just know.

“That I’m…” She nodded, “on it.”  She said softly after a long pause.

“Oh he told me that too.”  Chop said.  Rae turned an annoyed face to Chop and then back to Finn.

“You told the girls I got a nice cock.”  He said innocently and Rae narrowed her eyes at him as he grinned, knowing he’d just gotten himself out of trouble. 

“What?”  Chop asked and looked at Izzy.  “Girls talk about that stuff?”  He sounded equally horrified and excited by the idea.  Izzy nodded as if breaking a terrible truth to him.  Archie started to laugh.

“What are you laughing at?”  Chloe asked.

“I’m the only one here that no one can talk about.”  He said.

“Except for you putting your hand on me boob the first time we kissed.”  Rae shot at him and he blushed, everyone but Finn laughing. 

“Yeah but no one’s talking about his dick!”  Chop said with an unimpressed look.  “You talk about that stuff?”  He asked Izzy again.

“Just a little.”  She said guiltily. 

“Fuck.”  He said shaking his head slowly.  And then he suddenly shrugged, “I’m gonna feel a lot less guilty when I brag about shagging you now.”  He grinned, “you go for it Iz!”  She smiled as he came over to give her a kiss.  Rae turned her eyes to Finn.

“D’you brag?”  Finn tried to pick his back teeth with his tongue and looked at everything but Rae, trying to think what the best answer was. 

“Fuck yes he does.”  Chop said as he looked down at Izzy with a grin.  He turned to look at them and raised his eyebrows.  Rae looked at Finn and he grinned guiltily.

“Only a little.”  Chop scoffed.  “And not at school.”  Finn tried to say over Chop’s scoff.

“That’ not what Rick said.”  Chop said, “In for a penny in for a pound.”  He said at Finn’s incredulous face.  “Might as well just come clean.”  Finn shook his head at Chop’s idiocy.  “And while we’re at it.  Rick says that it’s going all round your school that you cheated on Rae with Chloe.”  Chloe lowered her eyes and covered her face and Rae turned to look at Chloe and then Finn, “apparently you fucked her.”  Chop said, “I told him it were bullshit.”  He shrugged. 

“Oh no.”  Rae said softly and Finn took her hands as Chop kept talking.

“Anyway.  I was thinking.”  He took a good look at Izzy, then Chloe, then Rae.  “That there’s been a lot o’ dickhead guys around.  So I rounded up the lads and we figured that we could teach you girls some self-defence stuff, so you can beat the shite outta those dickhead guys.  That’s why we brought you here!”  Chop said with a grin.  But none of the girls were interested in self-defence right now. 

“Who started it?”  Izzy asked understanding how bad this was for Rae. 

“Phillip.”  Finn popped that last p, but this time in anger. 

“You can’t know that.”  Rae said.

“I wish you’d stop sticking up for him!”  Finn exclaimed, “I know ok?  He told me he knew yester.”  He shook his head angrily.

“Alright but who told him about it?”  Rae reasoned with him.

“Wait.”  Chop said, seeing Chloe crying, “Are you telling me this actually happened?” 

“Kinda.”  Rae answered.

“What the fuck is wrong with you Finn?”  Chop asked accusingly.  Izzy nodded her head agreeing with Chop. 

“It weren’t me!”  Finn answered.

“It’s always you!”  Chop said, “Like it would always be me!”  Chop said, “Guys need to keep their dicks under control!”  Chop said angrily, “and why are you fucking forgiving him?”  He asked Rae angrily. 

“Don’t talk to her like that!”  Finn got to his feet and squared up against Chop. 

“It was me!”  Chloe said crying, “I did it ok?”  She sniffed, “I kissed him, he stopped me right away.  He did nothing wrong, I’m the slut.  It’s my fault.”

“No Chloe.”  Rae said firmly, “I am not gonna blame you.”  Finn bit the inside of his lip and watched Rae went to her.  “You acted out in trauma and self-harm.  And that’s what you’re doing right now.  No one in the gang is going to blame you for doing that.  Or blame Finn for being the person you tried to hurt yourself with.”  Rae said firmly, as much to Chloe as to everyone else.  Chloe reached out her arms for Rae and Rae hugged her.  Chop nodded an apology to Finn who shrugged.  Izzy mouthed the word ‘sorry’ to Finn and he smiled wanly.  Archie watched Rae proud of her actions and thinking that his analogy about Bruce Banner was what made it happen. 

“It was me.”  Chloe stuttered to Rae.

“No Chloe, it’s alright.”  She said softly, stroking her hair.

“I told Liam.”  She said softly.  The silence that followed that was broken only by Chloe’s sniffs.  Finn sucked his teeth moodily and stared off.  Izzy reached over and started to comfort Chloe as Rae pulled back a little. 

“Why would you do that?”  Finn asked moodily, unable to contain it.

“We were comparing the shit things we’d done to Rae.”  She wiped her face, “I wanted his to be worse than mine.”  She lowered her eyes, ashamed, “but it wasn’t.”  Finn looked at Rae. 

“Yes it was,” Rae said softly.  “And I’ve forgiven you Chloe.”  She said and hugged her again.  “Although I don’t know how I’m ever going back to school.”  She shook her head, “they already talk enough about me.  This’ll just…”

_They’ll all say he dumped the fat ugly girl for the skinny pretty one._

“I didn’t think he’d tell anyone.”  Chloe said, “I’m so sorry Rae.”  Archie looked over at Finn’s livid face.  He wasn’t buying what Chloe was saying.  That or the mere mention of Liam sent him into a rage.  Either could be true, really. 

“Why don’t we just skip school today?”  Archie asked.  “Chop, you call in sick… and we’ll just all hang out here.”

“We can blame the stalker.”  Izzy said.

“What?”  Archie said.

“We can say Rae got something else scary and she needed us all.”

“Right,” Chop answered, “I’ll just tell work I got the brown squirts.”  He grinned, “they never ask for any details,” He went over to the payphones. 

“Right I gotta go to the loo.”  Rae said, needing a moment to gather herself.  She got up and left without looking back.

“Chloe.”  Finn’s voice was thick with rage.

“Finn…” Archie tried to calm him.

“What did Liam do to Rae?”  He asked and Izzy put a protective arm over Chloe’s shoulders.  Archie looked over to Chop; Finn’s anger was barely contained and he needed something to punch.  Chop with the pads was good for that. 

Chloe turned her eyes to Rae, just entering the women’s bathroom on the other side of the building.

“I don’t even know if I believe you.”  His eyes bore into her, “you might’a just done it to try and fuck me and Rae up again.  Wouldn’t surprise me.”  His voice was bitter and angry.

“Finn!”  Izzy said in surprise.

“You want me to believe that you didn’t mean to fuck us up?  You tell me what Liam told you.” 

“C’mon mate.”  Archie said gently.

“You tell me.”  He hadn’t moved towards her; he’d barely moved at all.  She looked at Izzy and Archie.

“I can’t say it in front o’ them.”

“Bugger off you two.”  Finn kept his eyes on Chloe. 

“No!”  Izzy said.

“It’s alright.”  Chloe said.  “Go see what’s holding up Chop?”  They reluctantly left.  All around them the grunts and impact sounds of fighting could be heard.  Finn calmly moved and sat down in front of her.

“Tell me what he did to her.”

“He made her fuck with her clothes on.”  Finn nodded.

“I know that.”  He thought back to therapy.

“He told her she weren’t no oil painting.”  Chloe watched the fiery rage in his eyes grow in intensity. 

“What else?”

“He told her that you were lying every time you said she was beautiful, you were lying.”  Chloe lowered her eyes, ashamed, and also not wanting to say anymore.  “He said that you couldn’t understand or know her cos she too mental and you only use your dick or something like that.  I don’t proper remember.”  She looked up at him, his anger was burning terrifyingly bright, but she knew she had to tell him everything she knew.  “He said that because she was crazy like him, she belonged with him, that it could never work out with you.  That she didn’t fit in your world.  And he grabbed her… touched her.  Covered her mouth.”  And then that fiery rage in his eyes turned to solid ice.  “Please don’t tell Rae I told you.”

“I won’t.”  He said softly.  “But Izzy or Archie probably will.”  He seemed abnormally calm and Chloe found it frightening. 

“What are you gonna do to Liam?”

“I don’t know.”  He answered calmly.  Rae was heading back over and Izzy, Archie and Chop took that as their cue to also head over. 

“This is the last time you and me will spend time alone Chloe.”  Finn said softly, “there can never be another chance for something like that to happen again.  There can never be a hint of it.  I can never give Rae even the slightest reason to doubt me.”

“I understand.”  Chloe said, “And I agree.”  She nodded and he met her eyes for a moment before turning himself towards Rae.

“What’s going on?”  Rae asked.

“I didn’t believe her.”  Finn said in a monotone.  “So I asked her some questions.”

“Do you believe me now?”  Chloe asked miserably. 

“I dunno.”  He said, “Which is better than outright not believing you.”  He said honestly. 

“Finn, I believe her, and that’s what matters.”  Rae sad firmly.

“Alright.”  He looked up at her, “you’re stunningly beautiful by the way.”  He said honestly and she smiled.

“Thanks.”  She looked over at the others.  “Why were they over there?

“I told them to check out what was taking Chop so long.”  Chloe answered.

“Ok.”  Rae figured that she didn’t need to worry about Chloe trying anything with Finn in this public a place, so she put it from her mind. 

“Right motherfuckers!”  Chop had decided to be the master of changing topics when Izzy had told him what was being said between Chloe and Finn.  “Let’s do self-defence!”  Finn jumped up, a cold, dead weight in his chest.  Chloe stood up slowly, wanting the subject to change as much as Chop did.  Izzy’s eyes travelled warily between Finn and Chloe.  Finn gave her a reassuring smile and she grinned, relieved. 

“So the first thing we is gonna learn, is how to escape if someone is holding you from behind!”

“I dunno.”  Rae said reluctantly.

“I insist.”  Finn said calmly.  She made a whining noise and he turned his eyes to her, “please.”

“Alright.”  She moaned and let him grab her from behind.  Chop started to talk about how to get out of the hold while Izzy was in his grasp. 

“I don’t feel very motivated to get out of this hold.”  Rae laughed and let her hands reach behind her to feel Finn’s cock through his pants.  He stifled a groan and felt himself instantly respond to her touch.

“Alright then you fucking fuckers!”  Chop said, “We’ll swap.”  Finn, despite wanting to keep his arms around her acquiesced and went to Izzy without an argument.  He wanted Rae to learn this stuff. 

Rae was the first to throw off her ‘assailant’ and Chop landed on the floor with a heavy thud. 

“Well done!”  He bounced back up, “again!”  Finn looked over to watch Rae’s form. 

“Swap back.”  He said to Chop and Chop agreed without a word.  “Square your hips more or you might hurt your back.”  Finn said softly and she nodded, he grabbed her from behind and, using his weight against him, like Chop had taught her, she threw him off instantly.  He thudded to the ground and looked back up at her.

“Great.”  He grinned, feeling incredibly attracted to her.  “Let’s try that again.”  He said as Chloe managed to throw Archie. 

“I’m never gonna get this!”  Izzy moaned.

“Your centre of balance is lower than theirs.  You’re thinking too high.  Think of dance classes.”  Chloe said, her eyes more alive than they’d been in days.  “Throw him from your cunt.”  She said.  The boys laughed in shock and Izzy turned her eyes to Rae who nodded. 

“Well, the pelvis.”  She corrected. 

“But cunt sounds stronger.”  Chloe grinned and Rae laughed.

“Yeah, throw him from your cunt Izzy.”  Rae merrily agreed. 

“I can’t even say that word!”  She blushed.  But when Chop put his arms back around her, she concentrated on feeling her centre of gravity at the core of her and found it easier to understand where his weight was distributed, and she threw him over her shoulder perfectly. 

“Yes!”  She jumped on the spot.  “That’s from my… cunt.”  She whispered the last word and giggled triumphantly. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Time Bomb’ by Nick Barker _

 

“When did you start going out with Liam?”  Finn asked after a long silence.  Kester turned his eyes to Rae, the cigarette in his hand sending tendrils of smoke upward in beautiful patterns that Rae had been watching in the silence. 

Finn’s mood had been swinging wildly all day.  He was horny for her, cranky, distant, loving, a billion different things rolled up into one. 

Izzy had quietly breathed to her that Finn had rather rudely demanded that Chloe tell him what Liam had said to her about Rae.  Rae had groaned silently and Izzy had given her a sympathetic hug, before taking off with Chop, leaving her alone with moody Finn.  She knew that none of his anger was aimed at her.  Understood that he was as enamoured with her as ever.  But worried that his fury and hatred towards Liam had reached a level from which he couldn’t come back now. 

They had sat in therapy silently for 10 minutes.  Rae had given Kester a look and nodded at Finn’s grumpy outline as he stood at the window glaring out at the world. 

When he had finally spoken, Rae was not surprised that he was asking about Liam. 

“After you went to Leeds.”

“So you weren’t with him the whole time like Chloe said?”

“No.”

“So why’d she say that?”  He shook his head, “trying to fuck us up even when we was apart.”  He said angrily.

“Liam kissed me after he had a panic attack.”  Rae said, “When he was still with Amy.  I kissed him back.  I don’t even know why.  I didn’t really fancy him.”  She watched him clench his fists slightly, “I felt guilty.  So I told Amy.”  She shrugged.  “Chloe had taken a punch for me cos she believed me when I said there was nothing between us.”  Rae looked over at him, “She must have felt real betrayed.  Thought the worst.”  Finn thought about it for a while. 

“It wouldn’t o’ happened if I hadn’t o’ gone.”  He said to himself.

Kester waited silently for this mood of Finn’s to bear fruit.  Rae knew that today’s session wold likely focus all on Finn. 

“I don’t really want you to be friends with Liam anymore.”  He said softly as he sat down, “but I know I can’t order you not to be.  It’s your choice.”  He looked over to her, “but I need to know why you still care about him?”

“I met him at a time when I was really vulnerable.”  She said.

“Uh huh.”  Finn said, his tongue probing his back teeth again, his anger rising because he knew Liam took advantage of her vulnerability. 

“I met him at a time, when I needed someone like me to hang around.  I thought he were like me.  I still think he is; in some ways.”  She pulled a thread from her skirt, “he made me feel like I could get over my mental illness cos he were so alive and still mad like me.  But in the end… I think he likes being fucked up.  And I don’t.”  She watched him light a cigarette, “I guess I still care about him because I saw so much of myself in him… so I hope he can get well… cos it’ll mean I can.  I have to believe there’s a chance.”  Finn nodded slowly.

“I’m gonna throttle him to within an inch of his life if I see him near you.”  He said calmly.  “And I’ll take that last inch if he hurts you.”

“You can’t tell me that I can make my own decisions then take that decision from me like that.”  Rae countered.

“That’s not what I’m meaning to do.”  Finn said, “It’s how I feel though.”

“Izzy told me about…”  Rae looked down, “what did Chloe tell you?”  She looked into his eyes, seeing the icy rage. 

“Enough.”  Finn said.

“About the oil painting thing?”  He nodded.  “About the stuff he said to me under that tree?”  He nodded, “about the way we had sex?”  Finn slowly shook his head and Rae took a deep breath.

“Ok.”  She breathed.  Finn looked at her expectantly.  “You want me to tell you?”  He nodded and she looked away.  “The first thing we ever did was a blow job.”  Finn clenched his jaw and felt his hands wanting to ball into fists.  “I hadn’t done anything like that before and he commented that it was obvious and was pretty mean about telling me what he wanted.  He came and it got in me eye and it hurt and he thought it were funny.”  She felt her leg jittering angrily.  “I nearly puked when he came all over me face.”  She bit her lip and shook her head, “didn’t warn me it were coming.  And when I’d wiped me face he showed me the door and said ‘thanks for that’ didn’t even offer me a fucking glass o’ water.  And then he didn’t talk to me for a bit.  Like, you know, I’d served me purpose.”  Finn stood up suddenly and went to the window angrily, he grabbed hold of the sill, hard, his knuckles white.  “That were the night you left.”  Finn felt his inside burning with rage.  “Then I saw him at group therapy and… he were nice to me again.”  She sighed, “After I realised what a bitch I’d been to Chloe, I went to his house again.  You know, I’d failed you the first time.  And I used him to punish myself.  And this time I’d failed Chloe.”  She fidgeted and looked up at Kester who nodded encouragingly.  “He knew it were me first time.  I had a dress on.  We only took me underwear off.  It were the only part o’ me he were interested in.  I turned the light off, told him that neither of us were oil paintings.”  Finn felt his nostrils flair.  “He thrust in pretty hard.  It hurt.  But that’s I wanted so… it were ok.  Didn’t last long… didn’t ask what I wanted or what I liked.”  Rae shrugged, “he were using my… I can’t even say body…. He we just using my vagina to make himself cum.  He rolled over and face the wall and slept for the rest o’ the night when he’d done it.  I laid awake thinking about how close I’d come to me first time being with you…”  Rae felt a tear drip on her hand and she wiped her face absent-mindedly, “he asked if it were alright in the morning.  He were almost pleasant.  I told it him it were perfect.”  Rae finished and took a deep breath.  It felt surprisingly good to get all of that out.  Finn wanted to punch something.  Hard.  Kester noticed the anger.  He stood up and walked over to Finn, he took Finn’s hands and pulled him into a slight embrace.

“What are you doing?”  He asked angrily.

“Teaching you to Waltz.”  Kester said as if it were obvious. 

“What?”  Finn asked bewildered and angry, but felt himself pulled forward, he looked down at his feet and tried not to step on Kester’s feet.  Rae watched with her mouth open. 

“There’s a lot of ways to deal with anger.”  He said after Finn had focussed long enough on not stepping on hm.  “One of the ways is to physicalise it.  You’ve learned to do that with your fists.”  Kester said, “You father sending you to boxing wouldn’t have helped.”  Finn looked up at him, still confused.  “You’re the kind of young man that won’t strike out at people who you feel don’t deserve it.”  Kester smiled, “so I felt quite safe to teach you another way to physicalize your anger.  Dance.”  He smiled absurdly.  “You’ll probably preferring jogging, but… I like dancing.”  Finn gave him a look that indicated how incongruous he deemed this to be, but learned the steps nonetheless.  “And this is my office, so dancing it is.”  He made Finn take the lead a few minutes later, and sat back down a few minutes after that. 

Finn sat down shaking his head, a disbelieving smile on his face.

“Alright, I’ll try jogging next time I’m angry.”  He pulled a cigarette out but didn’t light it yet, putting it behind his ear instead. 

“Dancing’s good too.”  Kester chucked and Finn couldn’t help but chuckle too.  “You’ll notice that the anger isn’t gone.”  Finn shook his head in response, “but it’s more manageable now.”  Finn nodded.  “It’s ok for us to feel whatever we feel.  It’s how we respond to our feelings that matters.  It’s how we physicalise them, express them, how we let them affect our loved ones.”  Kester leaned back and folded his hands over his stomach, crossing his leg.  “It’s ok that you’re angry.  But what you do with it matters.”  He pointed at Finn’s hands, “try not to use your fists unless you’re in the gym.”  Finn nodded.  “I feel that you physicalise a lot of your emotions?”  Finn was struck with a memory of the conversation he’d had with Elsa and knew exactly what he meant.

“Rae and I had a lot of sex instead o’ talking.  But we’re fixing that.”  He added, “But even now, I still kiss her instead of say all the things I want’a say.  I think I’m getting better there too.”

“How so?”

“Like I can tell her she me world now.”

“How did you manage to improve the way you deal with your positive emotions?”  Kester pulled at his ear.  Rae was starting to think that he did that whenever he was on to something. 

“I dunno.”  Finn said.

“What do you think Rae?”  Kester asked her.

“We’re both bad at it, cos we’re worried what the other thinks and… I think we’re getting over that cos… it’s important.”

“It’s important.”  Finn agreed, “It’s really important for Rae to know how much I care about her.”

“Ok.  So how do you think we can help you learn to express your negative emotions better?”

“I guess… I have to think they’re important too?”

“It’s harder to do that with negative emotions.”  Kester stated.

Finn leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling, he slouched so far down in the chair that his arse nearly came off the seat, his head rested on the top of the backrest, he stared at the ceiling, thinking. 

“With positive feelings.  I know what they’re about.”  He said.

“They’re uncomplicated?”

“Except for what like Rae said… you know, worry she’ll think I’m a right git.”  He grinned, “but the feelings themselves are… uncomplicated.”  He agreed.

“And your anger?”

“I think it’s uncomplicated.  I want’a punch the shit out o’ something.”  He scrunched up his face, “but…” He thought back over all of their therapy, “it’s not that simple.  I’m angry at Liam for hurting Rae.  But there’s more.  I feel guilty for my part in that.  And ashamed.  And I hate that he got there first.  And I hate that I think that way cos I should be thinking ore of how it were for Rae.”  He scratched his stomach through his shirt lazily, “and I hate that she got this connection with him and… there’s just so much stuff happening.”

“It’s complicated.” 

“Aye.”

“How much of it do you think has to do with your self-esteem?  With you not thinking you’re enough for Rae?”  Finn paused for a long time and Kester turned an eye to Rae and gave her a quick smile.  She returned it and looked at Finn.

“A lot.”  He said, “I know there’s a lot of fear.”  He shrugged, “we covered that already.”

“And if you focus on that, instead of the anger, which is more a symptom of that feeling… is it easier to express it?”  Finn sat up and looked at Kester as if he had said something totally unexpected.  He turned to Rae.

“I’m afraid Liam is just gonna hurt you again.  And it makes me really angry, and I’m scared I’ll hurt him.  Badly.”  He said simply.  “When I think about what he did to you, and I realise how much of it had to do with my failings, I’m scared that you’ll start to blame me too, and you’ll leave me.”  He looked at Kester, “easier, but more terrifying.”  He said with a small smile and turned back to Rae, “I’m scared that you love him.  That you have a connection with him that you don’t have with me.  And that you love him, but you don’t realise yet.  I’m scared you’ll leave because… I’m not as good as you.”  A tear fell down his face, “I’m scared of Liam and what you might feel for him.”  Finn wiped his palms on his jeans and got up.  “I think I prefer the anger to this.  Fear is… bad.”  He went to the window and lit a cigarette.

“Sometimes it’s healthy to just be angry.  But sometimes not.  Sometimes anger is just masking other things.”

“You have nothing to be afraid of.”  Rae said softly, “I don’t love Liam.  Alright?”  Finn felt some of his fear lift and he nodded gratefully.  But there was still an anger boiling in him. 

“I’m still angry.”  Finn said softly.

“It takes time to work through it all.”  Kester acknowledged. 

“It’s getting easier to control my anger but.”  He turned to Rae, “There was a bunch o’ guys at school talking about you, but I didn’t punch ‘em like I wanted to.  I talked it out and realised how fucking pathetic they were… and I’m pretty sure that most of ‘em wanna fuck you now.”  He smiled, “sorry.”

“Probably not.”  She smiled and shook her head. 

“Shall we try to address another issue Finn?” Kester leaned forward, “try to cut to the centre of the complicated feelings you’re having to identify the important parts.  Pick any topic you want.”

“Phillip.”  Rae sighed and Finn turned his frustrated face to her.

“Phillip isn’t an issue!”

“I don’t like how you ignore me about this, Rae.”  Finn said, “He’s an issue.”

“Because you choose to make him one.”

“He likes you, he told me he cares about you.”

“I care about Chop, but I don’t like him that way.” 

“Why do you refuse to see it?”  Finn said exasperated.  “He likes you!”  Kester narrowed his eyes and waited for them to sort it out, hoping that it wouldn’t escalate into an argument.

“Even if he does it don’t matter!”

“Do you like him or something?”

“What?”  Rae asked angrily.  “Why would you say that?”

“Because you won’t say no to him!”  Rae looked confused.

“He hasn’t asked me anything.”

“But he has.  Constantly.  The way he treats you.  He’s silently asking you if he’s got a chance.”

“I don’t see it Finn.”  She shook her head.  “But even if he is… I haven’t said yes, and that’s what counts.”

“Aye, and you haven’t said no either.”

“I don’t understand the difference.”

“Not saying yes, gives him some hope.”  Finn said, “Saying no, gives him no hope.  It tells him you are unavailable.”

“I’m fairly certain he knows I’m unavailable.”  Rae said snippily, “especially with the way you act around him.”

“You’re leaving him thinking there’s a chance Rae.  So I can’t help but think that you like him.”  Finn looked around the room shaking his head, “I guess I’m angry and afraid of what that means.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you haven’t said no to him… and because…”  Finn shrugged as he tried to see the important stuff under all the complicate feelings, “he’s brilliant… at everything you’re brilliant at.”  He looked at her face.  “Do you like him?”

“No.”

“Then tell him no.”

“No.”

“Why?”  Finn asked angrily.

“Because if you’re wrong about how he feels and I tell him that I’m not interested, it’s embarrassing.”

“Wouldn’t you-”

“Rae.”  Kester gently intervened as it escalated.  “What do you like about Phillip?”

“He’s nice.  He says nice things to me.  He likes me… as a friend… ok and maybe as more…” she shook her head, “ok.  Ok…” She acknowledged, “it’s flattering… that maybe –and I mean maybe!  Maybe he likes me.”  Finn looked deeply unimpressed.  “Don’t look at me like that Finn!”  Rae said, “You’re the fittest boy in school, everybody likes you!”  Rae sighed, “I’ve never had anyone have a crush on me.”

“Um…”  Finn said, “Me?”  Rae paused, thinking through what she felt.

“I know… and that’s the most important thing but… every girl in a 5 kilometre radius has wet knickers over you… I got one other boy that maybe might like me… you don’t know what that’s like.”

“Ok…”  Finn shook his head, “I don’t know what it’s like… but maybe you could tell me what it’s like instead of keeping Phillip open as an option?”

“I haven’t kept him open as an option.”

“Well I can’t see that.”

“Nearly every conversation I have with Phil ends up with some sizeable part of it being about me gushing about how wonderful y’are.”  She shook her head, “don’t matter what we talk about… ‘Isn’t O’Brien in 1984 a turd’ ‘yeah but you know who isn’t? My Finn!’ that how I talk.”  She laughed, “Chloe and Izzy have noticed that I have a special ‘fantasizing about you’ face that I pull!”  She picked at her nails, “bloody hell Finn, everything’s about you.  It’s a wonder you don’t get bored o’ me.”  She looked at him, “The reason I don’t see Phil as a problem is that he puts up with me talking none stop about you, just like Chloe and Izzy do… and so does Archie actually… and occasionally Chop too.”  She said with an embarrassed grin. 

“I know you don’t like him.”  Finn acknowledged, “I just…”  Finn shrugged, “some o’ the stuff he said to me got under me skin.”

“What did he say?”

“Ah don’t worry about it.  He were just trying to rile me up.”  He sucked his bottom lip for a minute, “and it worked.”

“And why do you think it worked?”

“Cos I don’t think I’m good enough for her.  I got the point already.”  Finn said.  “A lot of our problems come from my self-esteem issues.  I got it.”

“Not just yours.”  Rae said. 

“So you see why getting to the important underlying feelings is important?”  Kester said, “And why communicating that underlying feeling is important?”

“It makes the things that I thought were big problems seem pretty small.”  Finn admitted.  “If I just stay angry, the problems seem much bigger.  Like I can’t get over them.”  He nodded again, “I got it.  Point well and truly made.”  He said to Kester.  Kester gave a small smile and turned to Rae. 

“I was actually asking Rae that question.”

“Because I confuse the issues… and Finn… with my silence.”  Rae said, “Because some of the stuff I do, and feel, doesn’t make sense to him.  I’m embarrassed by so much of what’s in me… I’m scared o’ what Finn’ll think o’ me… but every time I tell Finn stuff… he always understands and tries to help.  And it makes me feel better.  But more importantly, it makes him feel better.”

“You’re both equally important.”  Kester said and leaned forward, looking at both of them carefully.  “The things that scare us, have less power over us, when we shine a light on them.” 

“But I’m still angry.”  Finn said softly.

“Dance it off.”  Kester joked.  “Go for a hard run.”  He added seriously and Finn nodded, hoping, more than believing it would work. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Sanctified’ by Nine Inch Nails _

 

Finn sunk down onto Rae’s bed.  The week was over.  It was Friday afternoon and he had made it through the week.  He hadn’t been a very good boyfriend the past few days; he knew he was too moody.  He’d also finished all of his cigarettes already.  He watched Rae slip her shoes off and head to the bathroom. 

_Look at the way her arse moves._

Finn watched her in deep frustration.  He had never been this sexually frustrated in all of his life.

Not when he was 14 and fumbling over his first porno mag.

Not when he was 15 and couldn’t get a girl to do anything with him.

Not when he was 16 and had been kicked out of Stacey’s house after he’d gotten his cock so close to the prize.

Not when he was 17 and desperately trying to get into Miss Earl’s pants. 

No.  It was now.  Now that he had an extremely satisfying sex life that had been put on hold by a completely natural, cyclical event. 

He was still 17, but now he’d gotten into Rae’s pants and he knew what he was missing out on.

_This is gonna happen._

_Every._

_Fucking._

_Month._

Finn put Rae’s pillow over his head and groaned loudly into it.

He pulled the pillow off his face and opened his mouth to ask Rae if she were still on it.

_Don’t pester her._

_You’ll make her think you’re only after one thing._

_Well right now I am._

“I need a fucking cold shower.”  He mumbled to himself and rubbed his face.  He lifted up his pelvis and pulled 1984 out of his back pocket and settled in to finish he last few chapters.  He was halfway through his essay for English already and had started Utopia as well, but found it really dry.  He still had until Wednesday though, to trawl through that and the Handmaid’s Tale. 

He found it hard to concentrate at first, but eventually his sexual frustration eased as he read a book that he already felt was his favourite.  He felt his brain waking up, seeing everything in the text, seeing its relevance for contemporary society, feeling the human undercurrent of despair. 

Rae left the bathroom and leaned on the doorframe watching him read from a while.  She leaned with one arm above her head, the other hand on her hip, her head dipping suggestively.  She waited for a while, waited until she saw his sexual frustration leave him.  Then she smiled evilly.

“Finn.”  She said softly and he looked over to her. 

_Goddamnit Rae…_

She was standing completely naked in the doorway.  Finn felt the fire of frustration burst to life in his gut and he groaned as she walked over to him and straddled him, gently taking 1984 out of his hands.  She put his hands on her hips and leaned down to kiss him.  He felt his fingers dig into her hips and stopped himself from squeezing too hard. 

She’d slept naked next to him every night.  Sometimes in her granny undies, sometimes with a tampon in and no underwear.  It had been torture.  Hell. 

She’d teased him like this yesterday morning until he’d called her a dirty bitch and she’d laughed.  She enjoyed how frustrated he was.  Her teasing had become more and more seductive every day.  She rubbed herself on him, sucked his cock, fucked his mouth with her mouth when they kissed. 

Her hands found the zipper to his jeans and the sound of her ripping it down made him groan loudly. 

“You are too sexy.”  He breathed as she reefed at his jeans.  He helped her undress him and settled back for his nightly torturing.  He loved it and hated it in equal measures. 

Her kissing was particularly fervent, heated in an entirely new way and he felt his cock throbbing already, and she’d barely touched him. 

Today’s torture would be impossibly hard to bear.  Her body moved above him rhythmically, her tongue insisted on tasting all of his skin, her hands stroked, caressed, scratched his skin. 

“I want you.”  She breathed, looking him in the eye and he kissed her hard.

_Maybe we can do it anyway, even though she on it?_

_No Finn.  She don’t want to do it when she on it._

_You gotta wait till she not on it anymore._

_Get it together Finn._

He wrapped his arms around her body hard, trying to still her body; it was too much, he wanted her too much. 

He could tell from the look in her eyes that she knew how badly he wanted her.

“Finn?”  She asked with an impish grin.  He groaned in response.  “How close are you to just doing it anyway.”

“Close.”  He breathed.  “But I know you don’t wanna.”  He gritted his teeth.  “So I won’t.”  He said with supreme self-control, his whole body aching painfully for her 

“Let’s get you closer.”  She whispered and he rolled his head back with a deep moan.  She kissed his neck, but he kept hold of her body to still the grinding of her hips. 

“Rae.”  He could barely make the word form in his mouth, he was losing his mind with desire for her, “you gotta stop.”  He said, worried that he might not stop.  She smiled, seeing that he was as far as he could go before he lost himself completely.  So she pressed her breasts into his chest, put her lips to his ears and tipped the scale over.

“I’m not on it anymore.” 

In an instant Finn had slammed her into the bed, him on top, fire in his eyes.  She didn’t know how he’d done it, but her legs were around his waist and he was inside her as deep as he could be.  He made a deep sighing breath as he ground in to her as hard and deep as he could in a slow drawn out thrust.  He reached his hand underneath her and took hold of her shoulders.  He grinned dirtily at her and started to fuck her, using her shoulders to pull her onto him hard, while he thrust into her equally as hard.  Rae cried out with pleasure as Finn hammered himself into her.

“Oh fuck.”  He knew he would cum too soon, but didn’t even care.  He’d be fucking her again in no time.  He already knew that.  He moaned loudly and came; a painfully long and exquisite orgasm.  He was heaving, his breath coming in ragged gasp. 

“You didn’t cum.”  He said.  She was panting, amazed by the way he’d just fucked her. 

“I were close but.” 

“Good.”  He said, his cock still hard and still inside her.  He took a deep breath and slowed down his heart rate before grabbing her shoulders harder and starting to pump into her again, his semen getting all over the bed and his groin.  She groaned loudly and cried out his name, her fingers digging into his back as he curled his knees up under her arse to tilt her pelvis into a better position for her to cum.  He knew the things that made her cum easier.  He thrust hard, his fingers digging into her shoulders almost painfully.  She came, swearing and screaming his name and he grinned, but he wasn’t satisfied. 

_Time for a bit o’ revenge._

He was gonna make her cum so much she wouldn’t be able to walk after.  He reached his hand down to the mess between her legs and groaned, turned on that it was his mess, his cum all over her.  He found her clitoris and rubbed it gently, his other arm still using her shoulder for leverage.  She curled into him, her knees coming up around his sides, her head raised to his neck, her arms wrapped firmly around his back.  She was whimpering and groaning in pleasure, but it wasn’t enough, he sped up, his lungs starting to protest a little.  She cried out, her whole body shuddering, her groans coming from deep inside of her.  But Finn didn’t stop rubbing her clitoris like he normally did when it got so sensitive that she could barely breathe.  He kept going, kept fucking her.  Her whimpers were breathless, her body shaking, her fingernails making his back bleed. 

“Finn!”  She screamed in a ragged voice as another orgasm rocked through her.  He almost laughed with elation and kept going, feeling the violent shaking of her body growing as he continued, her moans rose an octave, her legs squeezed his hips, making it harder to thrust so he used his elbow to push the one leg open again kept going, biting his bottom lip now, counting the orgasms in his head.  Four was his previous best.  That would not do this time.  She squealed and swore at him as she came again, her body collapsing back in exhaustion, he stopped rubbing her clitoris and used his hands to tilt her pelvis more, knowing that this made her cum, she could barely groan, but he saw that her whole body was tensed as another orgasm rolled through her, her eyes staying on his eyes as he knelt upright between her thighs, his knees under her arse, his hands tilting her pelvis even more.  He let himself look over her body, the way it moved as he thrust into her, he loved her tits bouncing in rhythm to his movements, loved the way his cock looked thumping into her cunt, surrounded by a thick sticky mess. 

He pulled almost all the way out, so that he could see the head of his cock, glistening with the cum from deep inside of her.  He looked up at her face, contorted with pleasure and thrust back into her hard. 

“You’re gonna cum for me again Miss Earl.”  He commanded in a quiet voice.  And she did.  In tiny gasping whispers.  As her orgasm started to pass, he rubbed her clitoris again and her gasps got louder as she came again on the coattails of her last orgasm.  He bent down, wrapping his arms around her and slowed down, stroking her hair.  He kissed her lips slowly and tenderly, despite his lungs bursting from his previous exertion.  He came again, with a gentle moan as he kissed her, his whole body aching with pleasure and love.  He stayed inside of her, kissing her for a long time. 

“I missed being inside you.”  He said in between kisses.

“Bloody hell Finn.”  Her voice cracked, red raw from her gasp and moans. 

“Alright?”  He asked with a smug grin.

“Yeah.”  She nodded her head, “I might never walk again but.”  He laughed and settled down beside her.

“Were that six?”  He asked proudly.

“Do you count?” 

“Aye.”  He grinned cheekily. 

“That were six.”  She told him infected by his happy mood.

“Pleased with yourself?”  He shrugged.

“I won’t be proper pleased with myself till I got you in double figures.”  They heard the door banging downstairs.  Rae’s mum was home her ‘mums and bubs’ group.

“Good timing.”  Finn said and slowly got up.  “Fuck I’m exhausted.”  He laughed, “need a steak.”  He looked down at the mess between her legs.  “I just lost a lot o’ protein.”

“Jesus.”  Rae said as she looked at his semen spread all over his lower body and her own and on the bed beneath her.  “That is a lot of cum.”

“Been building up for a week.”  He was far too satisfied and Rae shook her head at him. 

“That will have gone through to the mattress.”  She mumbled.

“Aye!”  He laughed, “Marking me territory!” 

_Why don’t you just take your dick out and piss everywhere, I hear it’s a more effective way of marking your territory, you fucking Neanderthal_

_Fuck off Phillip.  Fucking wanker._

She got up shakily and kissed him.

“I like it.”  She said saucily and all thoughts of Phillip left his mind.  “God I feel like I’m gonna collapse!”  She said, surprised.  He followed her to the shower.

 

 

Half an hour later, Linda knocked the door and opened it not waiting for a reply.  Finn sat in Rae’s chair his feet up on her desk, reading a book.  Rae was on the floor, a pile of books spread around her, writing something.  Linda’s eyes saw the sizeable wet patch on the bed, their wet hair, the wet towels.  But she noted how Finn finished his sentence in the book before looking up at her.  The way that Rae’s notes had obviously been done over a couple of study sessions. 

“No flowers today.”  She said softly.

“Good.”  Rae said, “Maybe he’s given up?” 

“Maybe.”  Linda agreed hopefully. 

“Or he’s changing his methods.”  Finn cautioned.

“Alright grumpy pants.”  Linda replied, “Here for dinner?”

“If you don’t mind.  Shall I cook again?”

“No.  You study.”  She turned to Rae, “can you watch Aiesha?”

“Sure, bring her up?”  Linda nodded and left.  Rae looked over at Finn.  “You’re getting through that.”  She nodded at the book.

“Aye, it’s good.”

“How d’you think it’ll end?”  Finn closed the book, his finger keeping the page, and thought. 

“He’ll betray Julia and swear his love for Big Brother.”

“Really?  What makes you say that?”

“There’s a sense of… despair and… you know – like things are heading that way… what’s the word?”

“Inevitability.”

“Aye.”  Finn nodded.   “Inevitability.  Everyone knows what this world is… but they work to maintain it.  They just pretend it’s something it isn’t.  Doublethink.  That’s why it’s inevitable.  They’re all lying to themselves.  Except for the people in power.”  He shook his head, “I’ve never read anything more relevant to today’s world than this.”  He looked down at the cover, “It’s brilliant.”

“D’you wanna know what the ending is?”  Rae said, meaning she’d tell him.

“No, I wanna read it.”  Rae grinned at him and looked down at her homework, he watched her for a moment and opened up the book again, he wanted to finish it before they went to the pub after dinner. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Kinda I want to’ by Nine Inch Nails _

 

Archie walked up to Tom, beaming.  He’d had a great night at the pub with the gang; everyone had been in high spirits and Danny had stayed the whole time.  But he’d been eager to see Tom, worried that he might not keep their date; Archie hadn’t seen him all week.

“I see your shiner’s gone!”  Tom laughed. 

“Where have you been?  I’ve had to work with Rhys, and he does not like to laugh!”  Archie grinned as they headed off into the night.

“Had to go visit my mum.”  Tom said.

“Oh right.”  Archie said, “So where to tonight?”

“I don’t know Archie, where would you like to go?”  Tom stopped and turned to him, a big grin on his face.

“I dunno.”  Archie shrugged.  “I still don’t remember what happened last week!” 

“Oh right?  So you don’t remember how you got the shiner?”  Archie shook his head.  “I think I might have punched you.”  Archie laughed, confused and started to walk again, not knowing where they were going.

“Why?”

“I think…” Tom said slowly, “that I might have been trying to prove to some twat that we do boxing together?”

“Oh ok then.”  Archie said sarcastically.

“I’m sorry.  It’s all a bit hazy though.”  He grinned, only one side of his beautiful mouth rising, his eyes sparkling.

“It’s alright.  Who knows what I did to you.”  Archie laughed.

“Well you kissed me for one thing.”  Tom said suddenly.  Archie stopped and turned to him with sheer embarrassment and horror on his face.

“What?”  Tom started to laugh at the expression on his face.  “Are you sure?”

“I weren’t that high that I wouldn’t remember that.”  Tom put a hand on Archie’s face.  “It’s not right that you don’t remember it though.”  He stepped forward tentatively.  “We should give you that memory back.”  Archie could barely breathe.  Tom leaned in, his eyes on Archie, his lips parted.  And then he stopped.  He shook his head.

“I can’t do this.”  He looked at Archie hungrily.  “It’s not right.”

“Why?”  Archie found his voice.

“I’m far too old for you.”  Tom sighed heavily.  “I’ve already gone too far.  Should’a never asked you out on a date… but you’re just…”  He shook his head. 

“I don’t care.”  Archie said.

“But I do.”  Tom said, “Let’s just go to the club.  No Special K tonight but!”  He smiled.

“No.”  Archie said.  “I don’t care how old y’are.”  He leaned forward and kissed Tom’s lips.  Tom returned the kiss, his arms wrapping around Archie’s waist.  Archie raised his hands to Tom’s face and stepped closer to him so that their bodies pressed against each other.  Tom stopped the kiss, but he didn’t stop holding Archie.

“You’re so…” Tom breathed in deeply, “tempting.”  He said with a sly grin.  “But I’m 25.”  He shook his head, “and you’re what… 16?”

“17.” Archie corrected, “18 in April.”  Tom looked at his mouth and then raised his eyes slowly to Archie’s eyes. 

“I…”  Tom hesitated.

“Me best mate just dated a bird who’s 24.”  Archie shook his head, “Don’t tell me that’s alright and this isn’t.”  Tom reached up and stroked Archie’s face gently.

“You’re so earnest and beautiful.”  He said softly.  Archie kissed Tom again, Tom returning the kiss passionately. 

“Let’s go to your place.”  Archie breathed.  Tom looked at him, considering, debating, surrendering.

“Alright.”

 

 

They practically fell through the door, kissing, hands travelling over each other’s bodies.  Archie was shaking with anticipation.  Tom slowly took his jacket off and Archie was greeted with his impressive biceps pressing against his shirt sleeves.  Archie took his jumper and shirt off in one motion and stood topless before Tom, who was slowly unbuttoning his shirt and letting his eyes travel over Archie lustily.  Tom stripped his shirt off and reached for Archie’s belt buckle and pulled Archie to him, kissing his lips as he undid the belt and then unzipping Archie’s fly with expert fingers. 

Archie’s fingers fumbled through unbuttoning Tom’s fly and Tom grinned.

“Is this your first time?”

“No!”  Archie shook his head.

“It’s ok if it is.”  Tom persisted.

“Alright.”  Archie admitted, “it is.”

“Are you sure you want your first time to be with me… you hardly know me.”

“I’m sure.”

“I gave you a shiner.”  Tom said, “And I’ll probably give you another one.”  He grinned.

“Nah.  I been getting Finn to teach me a move or two!”  Archie said, “I’ll get you good in training.”  He grinned.  
“Finn?”  Tom said, “He’s pretty good.”  He laughed, “Should I be worried?”  Archie laughed.

“Yeah, cos I’m totally an ace boxer after a week of pestering him for tips!”  Archie rolled his eyes. 

“You’re sure about this?”  Tom asked again.

“Yeah.”  Archie said and gently slid Tom’s pants off hips, letting them slide down his legs, his wallet clanging as it hit the wooden floor through the pocket.  Tom grasped Archie’s cock and kissed his lips hard, his hand travelling up and down the shaft.  Archie reached for Tom’s cock but Tom stopped him.

“It’s your first time.  Tonight’s about you.”  He dropped to his knees before Archie and looked up at him.  “Let’s see how many times I can make you cum!”  He closed his mouth around Archie’s cock and easily deep-throated him, moving up and down eagerly.

“Holy shit.”  Archie breathed as he watched Tom sucking his cock.  Tom looked up at him with slutty eyes as he took Archie’s full length in his throat and licked his balls, his nose touching Archie’s pelvis.  Tom held himself there, looking up at Archie and took Archie’s hands and made him put them on the back of his head firmly.  Archie stood there, his hands wrapped up in Tom’s golden brown hair, looking down in disbelief at Tom sucking and slurping happily.  Tom grabbed Archie’s arse and encouraged him to thrust into his mouth and Archie did, tentatively at first, but speeding up as he saw Tom wanted him to.  Archie felt molten lava spreading from his balls up his body and knew he was going to cum.  But he wanted to do so much more first.  He started to slow down, but Tom kept going, Archie started to groan loudly and Tom groaned in unison.  Archie came loudly, watching Tom keep his mouth firmly around his cock as he slid Archie’s shuddering cock further down his throat.  By the time he’d finished coming, Tom’s nose was on his pelvis again, his eyes sparkling up at him.  He sucked hard as he pulled Archie’s cock out of his mouth, sucking him dry.  And opened his mouth for Archie to see the cum before swallowing. 

“Holy fuck.”  Archie groaned.  Then he shook his head, “I’m sorry I came so-”

“It’s fine.”  Tom said, “I’ll get you back up again, don’t you worry.”  He kissed Archie and Archie tasted his cum on Tom’s tongue.  It was the sexiest thing he’d ever experienced.  “For now, I got your sweet arsehole to focus on.”  Tom let his hand fall to Archie’s arse and squeezed it hard.  Archie whimpered excitedly at the way Tom was grinning. 

Tom took Archie’s glasses off carefully and folded them before putting them on the bedside table and then pushed him roughly back onto the bed and laughed at the way Tom dove on after him, kissing her ferociously.  He bit Archie’s bottom lip hard and Archie cried out in surprise and lust.  They kept laughing and kissing through Archie’s now bleeding bottom lip.  Tom’s hand crept roughly down Archie’s body, exploring him, exciting him.  He pulled back and leaned over him to the bed side table. 

“Gonna need this!”  He laughed as he pulled out some lubrication. 

“Oh fuck!”  Archie laughed.  He was shaking again but Tom was grabbing a pillow.

“Put that under your arse.”  He handed it to Archie and then started to put some lube on his fingers.  He looked Archie up and down and grinned lustily, “Spread ‘em.”  Archie let his thighs fall open, his pelvis tilted upward by the pillow, and Tom knelt between his legs. 

“Ready?”  He grinned and Archie nodded.  Tom gently reached below Archie’s balls with his fingers and caressed his hole.  He leaned forward and kissed Archie roughly as his fingers very gently probed and explored.  Archie groaned as Tom slid first one and then two fingers inside of him. 

“Now let’s find the sweet spot.”  Tom breathed and moved his fingers around, Archie moaning happily until suddenly Archie gasped.  “There we go.”  He grinned and kissed Archie open mouth.  Archie gasped and grabbed hold of the bed sheets as his cock started to throb again and incredible pleasure like he’d never felt before spread like a flood through his insides. 

Tom, still fingering Archie, knelt and grabbed the lube again, putting a huge amount on his cock, rubbing it up and down his shaft slowly as he watched Archie writhing in pleasure.  He knelt between Archie’s thighs and leaned in to kiss him as he removed his fingers and gently pushed the tip of his cock into Archie.  Archie gasped loudly.

“Shh.”  Tom said gently, “just relax.  It’s easier if you relax.”  Archie gasped again as Tom slowly pushed in a little further.  He pulled back slightly and kissed Archie tenderly. 

Archie tried to relax as he felt Tom push in a little further then gently pull back only a little.  He put his hand on Tom’s arm and squeezed as Tom pushed in again, then pulled back slowly.  Gradually Tom worked his way up to the hilt and pulled almost all the way out before thrusting all the way in.  Archie breathed normally, feeling his body accommodate Tom’s beautiful cock, feeling that ‘sweet spot’ starting to sing again.  Tom started to thrust hard and Archie grunted with pleasure, pulling Tom to him to kiss him roughly, passionately.  He felt Tom’s stomach brushing against his hard cock as his pelvis ground into his arse.  It was incredible and Archie grabbed Tom’s face and kissed him harder, deeper as tom’s thrust also grew harder and deeper. 

“Oh my god!”  Archie groaned as Tom started to stroke his cock, and sped up his rough, grinding thrusts. 

“You wanna fuck my arse?”  Tom asked, feeling how hard and throbbing Archie’s cock was.  Archie nodded eagerly and Tom leapt up, pulling Archie by the hand to get him up off the bed.  Tom tossed Archie the lubrication and bent over in front of him.  Archie looked at the lube and then at Tom, smiling at him over his shoulder.

“Go for it.  You won’t hurt me.”  Archie grinned and put some lube on his cock before tentatively stepping up to Tom, he bit his tongue as he concentrated on penetrating Tom.  Slowly he slid into Tom, his tight arse enveloped him exquisitely and he felt himself groaning from somewhere deep inside.  He grasped hold of Tom’s hips and pulled Tom back onto him and Tom shuddered and groaned with delight. 

“Fuck me!”  Tom commanded and Archie happily obliged.  Enjoying the way it felt to thrust into Tom, the way Tom moaned and gasped, knowing that he was doing that to Tom.  He thrust harder, faster, deeper and Tom moaned loader.

“Yes Archie!”  He groaned and Archie felt himself getting close again.  He reached around and grabbed Tom’s long cock and rubbed it happily as he ground his hips into him.  Tom gasped and turned his face to him, making eye contact as Archie fucked him.  Archie came again, looking into Tom’s eyes gasping and moaning.  Tom pushed him back and sat him on the bed he stood in front of him and jerked his cock a few times before a glorious torrent of cum shot out of him onto Archie’s face and into his open mouth. 

“Fucking hell!”  Tom moaned loudly.  He collapsed onto the bed as Archie swallowed.  He rolled towards Archie.  “Give it an hour and I’ll have you again.”  Tom laughed.  Archie grinned at him and nodded.

“I’m good to go again now!” 

“Oh right, well the old man needs a moment!”  he laughed.

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Apartment’ by Custard. _

 

There was already loud music and raucous laughter seeping through the door when Finn and Rae showed up.

“Can’t believe you wouldn’t let me invite everyone I’ve ever met.”  Rae sulked.

“Chop’s house.  Chop’s rules.”  Finn shrugged. 

“Weren’t my rules at my house.”  Rae said grumpily but Finn grinned at her.

“Yeah but Chop’s a twat.  And you’re not.”  He didn’t mention Chloe to her; how Chop thought this was safer for Chloe.  He didn’t want to even say Chloe’s name around her, just in case there was any lingering doubt in her mind.  They knocked on the door and Archie opened with a big grin.

“Late as always!”  He laughed and drew them both into a hug before letting them in.  Chop cheered when they came into the lounge room.

“And now we can have the grand tour!”  He announced as he jumped up and grabbed Izzy’s hand.  Chop had bought himself a 2 bedroom apartment.  His uncle had left him enough to buy the flat, the mechanic, when Joe sold, get a furniture for the flat, and to have a little left over, with no debts.  Everyone followed Chop from one room to the next as he gave them a monologue on the place, the spare bedroom had boxing gear and a set of drums amongst a lot of unpacked boxes. 

“This is where the magic happens!”  He opened the door to his bedroom, a huge king sized bed sat proudly between some more boxes and some new sets of drawers.  The girls all shared a glance, Chloe and Rae trying not to laugh and Izzy hit them both gently, making sure Chop didn’t see, the boys were too busy commenting on the paint, the structure, the shelving and all those uninteresting things.  

“Is that a walk in robe?”  Chloe asked and Chop nodded.

“Izzy wanted it.”  The girls turned their faces to Izzy who shook her head.

“I never said nothing about what you should buy!”  She grinned.

“No but about a month ago you said you’d always wanted one.”  Her eyes sparkled as she looked at him and he grinned.

“I love you Chop!”  He took her into his arms.

“Love you too baby girl.” 

“Ugh!”  Archie said as he looked away and everyone started to leave the room while Chop and Izzy kissed. 

The lounge room had been mostly unpacked, because Chop had put all the boxes in the spare room to make plenty of room for tonight.  The dining room had a pinball machine, a foosball table and various chairs and bean bags. 

The kitchen had barely anything in the cupboards.

“He’ll learn quick enough.”  Finn laughed as he opened the empty cupboards looking for a cup.  Chop came bounding out of the bedroom to challenge Archie to a game of foosball.  He grabbed a box for Finn and Finn opened it to see and assortment of battered cups.  He poured a drink for Rae and himself and sat on the kitchen side watching Archie and Chop play.  Izzy dragged the girls to the lounge room.  Finn grinned over his shoulder at Rae as she left the room with Izzy and Chloe, their heads already together, talking about something.  He turned back to Chop and Archie happily and watched Archie kicking Chop’s arse. 

 

 

“Oh my god Izzy!  Are you gonna move in with Chop?”  Chloe asked as they sat down on the lounge.  “Oh!”  She exclaimed, “This is a nice lounge!” 

“I told him not until after college.”  She grinned.  “If I lived here I’d never get any homework done!” 

“That’s serious.”  Chloe said looking to Rae to back her up.  Rae nodded.

“It’s serious.”  Rae agreed.

“You guys are serious!”  Chloe said excitedly. 

“Are we?’  Izzy asked delighted, “I mean… I guess we are!”

“I would get a ring on your finger before you move in though.”  Chloe said.  And they both looked to Rae who shrugged.  “Otherwise he’ll never do it… he’ll just keep putting it off cos he’s already got you in his house.”  Chloe nodded sagely. 

“Oh.”  Izzy fretted, “I do wanna get married.”

“To Chop?”  Chloe asked, already knowing the answer.  Izzy bit her bottom lip and nodded her head. 

“I love him so much.”  She gushed.

“Well, better hold out for that ring!”  Chloe advised.

“What d’you think Rae?”  Izzy asked her and Rae pulled a face.

“D’you know, I’ve never really thought about getting married…”

“But what about Finn?”  Izzy asked.  Chloe looked away for a moment and then turned her eyes to Rae, trying not to look too interested. 

“I mean yeah… Finn!”  Rae agreed, “Of course I wanna be with him.  I just never thought about getting a dress and saying vows and all that stuff.”

“Well of course you’ve gotta get married.”  Chloe said as if this was a forgone conclusion.

“I dunno… maybe we’ll just live together in sin.”  Rae said saucily, “I do like sin.”  They laughed.

“Oh but I want a big wedding.”  Izzy said, “with a beautiful white dress.”

“I don’t think you can wear white Izzy.”  Chloe said with a suggestive grin.

“I’m gonna wear it anyway!”  She hit Chloe’s arm softly and laughed. 

“I dunno… maybe being an orgasm virgin counts.”  Rae said and Chloe and Izzy gasped before laughing uproariously, Izzy blushing and hitting Rae.

“Don’t say that!”  She looked at the door worried, but still laughing, “He might hear you!”

 

 

Finn took a sip of the alcoholic drink Chop had given him and looked back to the lounge room door when he heard the girls laughing loudly, he grinned.  Archie and Chop looked up, both smiling at the laughter coming from the other room.

“Does it bother you that they’re laughing that loudly when you know they’re talking about your cocks?”  Archie said chuckling.  Finn and Chop’s faces fell momentarily as they both looked at the door more thoughtfully. 

“Well if they’re gonna talk about dick, I’m gonna talk about dick.”  Archie said, “I finally got laid last night.” 

“Alright!”  Finn congratulated him and Chop gave him an approving look. 

“Anyone we know?”  Chop asked.

“Tom…”

“From the boxing place?”  Finn asked seriously.

“Yeah why?”

“Nothing.”  He shook his head, glancing away from Archie’s face.

“If it’s his age-”

“No Arch, how am I gonna say something about that?”  Finn laughed.

“Tom, Tom?”  Chop asked.

“Yeah!”  Archie said.

“As in that guy you was flirting with the last time we was there?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s good looking Archie boy!”  Chop clapped him on the back and Finn leaned forward.

“What was it like?” 

“You guys wanna hear this?”  Archie asked incredulously.  Finn nodded and shrugged.

“You’re our mate, and we talk sex… so I guess we gotta!”  Chop grinned.

“Alright… well… it felt amazing!”  He grinned, “And Tom deep throats like they do in pornos.”

“Ooooh!  Chop and Finn laughed loudly. 

“I fucking love head!”  Chop laughed. 

“Fuck yes.”  Finn agreed.  “Does he swallow?”  Finn asked.  Archie nodded his head looking supremely pleased with himself. 

“Ah fuck!”  Chop admired, “I wish Izzy’d swallow, but she says it tastes like shit.”

“I heard girls just don’t swallow.”  Archie shrugged.

“Well that’s us done mate!”  Chop said to Finn.

“Rae swallows.”  Finn said with a dirty grin. 

“Get the fuck out!”  Chop laughed.

“Rae?”  Archie laughed.

“I’ll never look at her the same way!”  Chop guffawed.

“Don’t!”  Finn laughed.  “Don’t!”  He almost giggled he was so happy. 

“Rae Rae is a dirty little minx!”  Chop said to him and Finn giggled more nodding his head. 

“Who’d o’ thought it?”  Archie grinned. 

“You should write into Penthouse with that shit Finn!”  Chop laughed.

“I ate chocolate sauce of her the other day… I am one happy fucker!”  Finn agreed.

“Aye, but have you fucked her tits?”  Chop asked.

“Yes I have.”  Chop clinked glasses with him and shook his head.  “What about you and Izzy?”  He asked as he took a sip.

“She such a sweet girl.”  Chop said, “I worry about pushing her too hard, y’know?”  Finn shook his head.

“I were like that with Rae at first.  You know, worried if she were alright all the time?”  Finn was in his element; he finally knew more than Chop, “but then there was this time, in Sutherland actually, when I fucked her cunt so hard and deep I don’t know how I didn’t knock her fucking tonsils out.” 

“OOOH!”  Chop and Archie laughed and guffawed.

“And I pulled her hair.”

“You pulled her fucking hair?”  Chop said in disbelief.

“Get fucked!”  Archie denied his claim but Finn gave him a look that told him it was true.

“And I came all over her and she were just like, ‘hey, I liked that, let’s do it again’ so…”

“She liked it?”  Chop shook his head, “un-fucking-believable.  How does this grumpy cunt end up with the most sexually perverted girl on the planet?”

“Nah Chop!”  And then he paused, “well yeah, she is a dirty pervert and I love it!”  He laughed, “But what I’m trying to say is; girls are more dirty than you think.”

“What?”  Chop exclaimed, “You reckon I could do that to Izzy?”

“I fucking know you could do that to Izzy!”  Finn said, “With the right preparation.”  He grinned sagely. 

“Fucking hell!”  Chop said thoughtfully.

“Ayup Finn, I bet you haven’t fucked an arse though.”  Archie said with a grin. 

“Sadly no.”  He agreed.

“I’m disappointed in you Finlay.”  Chop joked.  “Get it up there!”

“Nah, I don’t think she wanna.”  He shrugged.  “You get some o’ that though Archie?”  Finn deflected.

“Yes I did!”  He grinned, “It were fucking amazing!” 

“Good work Archer!  Tom’s got a nice arse.”  Chop said earnestly.

“Are you gay Chop?”  Archie asked him laughing and Chop shrugged.

“No… but I’m trying to… you know…” He motioned at Finn, “I talk about Rae’s tits all the time cos they’re fucking amazing… so… Tom’s got a nice arse.  I do my bit, you know?”

“Very civic minded of you.”  Archie laughed and Chop agreed with a proud nod. 

“So are you going out?” Finn asked.

“I dunno.”  Archie pulled a face.  “I like him a fair bit though… so I hope so.  He’s so sexy!”  Archie gushed and Finn and Chop grinned. 

“He’s got nice hair.”  Finn said suddenly. 

“I hadn’t noticed.”  Chop said.

“He’s got nice hair.”  Archie confirmed. 

“Aye but you notice his arse!”  Finn laughed.

“I gotta notice things like that,” Chop shrugged, “for times like these.”  They heard the girls laughing loudly.  “I bet that’s your girl!”  Chop said to Finn.

“Probably, she does like to bang on.”

“It’s rubbing off on you.”  Archie noticed astutely. 

“Yeah maybe a little bit.”  He grinned.

“So is Izzy gonna move in then?”  Archie asked.

“After College.”  Chop told him, “I wanted her to move in right away, but she’s right to wait.”  He looked disappointed though.

“You two are getting right serious.”  Archie said and Finn watched Chop’s face closely.

“Yeah.  I’m gonna make that girl me missus.”

“Yeah?”  Finn asked intrigued.

“Fuck yeah.  I love that girl more than me own life.”  He shrugged, “it’s pretty simple really.”  He grinned, “She’s me whole world.”  He looked around the apartment. “And I’m gonna marry her and look after her, and we’ll raise a brood of kids.”

“A brood?’  Archie asked.

“Yeah at least 6.”  Chop answered honestly and Finn and Archie exchanged a glance. 

“You might need a bigger place for that.”  Finn suggested.

“Yeah.  Kids are a couple o’ years down the track.”  Chop nodded, “you understand Finn!”  Chop asserted.

“What?”  Finn was surprised Chop had said that.

“Well… you love Rae right?”  Chop shrugged, confused as to why Finn didn’t understand.

“Well yeah.”  He answered.

“So you know about planning the future… marriage… kids.”  Finn stared off for a moment.  And Archie and Chop looked at each other with surprise.

“You saying you haven’t even thought about it?”  Chop asked, “Rae hasn’t said anything?”

“I’ve thought about it.”  Finn said quietly.  “But Rae’s said nought.”  He lowered his eyes and looked at his drink.

“Oh.”  Chop said softly.

“Yeah but Rae’s not that kinda girl.”  Archie tried to salvage the mood.

“I think I might love her more than she loves me.”  Finn said with a numb mouth. 

“No way.”  Archie asserted.  Finn looked up at Chop.

“I don’t know what to tell you…”  He said, “I’d have thought she’d have talked about the future by now.”

“Has she not said nothing?”  Archie asked.

“We’ve had a couple o’ real emotional moments where… we said it were forever… but…”

“But nothing else?”  Chop asked incredulously.  “They gotta say it when they’re calm, not upset, for it to mean something.”  Chop said and Finn nodded. 

“But then I think like Archie said, Rae’s not that kind o’ girl.”  Finn said more hopefully.

“But still…” Chop said, “Nothing about the future?”

“She did mention us going to university together.”  Finn said, his mood perking up a little.

“Yeah but you’re not going to uni are you?”  Chop asked.

“I might.”  Finn shrugged and Archie seemed happy with that. 

“What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to you with your lover?”  Archie tried to lighten the mood.

“Oh that’s easy.”  Chop said, “I farted real loud when I was coming the other day.  And it fucking stunk!”  They all started laughing.  Archie turned his eyes to Finn.

“She found me porno mags.”

“Oh fuck!”  Chop guffawed loudly.

Rae wondered in to get a drink, the other girls following behind her. 

“Juggs!”  She said to the boys as she went to the fridge.  Finn’s eyes settled on her, and didn’t leave her face as she poured the drink.  The other girls grabbing some crisps from a box under the bench

“What’s Juggs?”  Izzy asked.

“His porno mags.”  Rae motioned towards Finn.  “I found ‘em under his bed.”

“Oh my god!”  Chloe looked scandalised “are you alright?”

“That’s awful!”  Izzy scowled at Finn. “Horrible boys!”  She muttered.

“I don’t care!”  Rae said as they girls left the kitchen to go back to the comfort of the lounge room.  Chop’s jaw dropped and Archie grinned as the door shut behind the girls.  Finn turned back to Chop and Archie with a big grin on his face. 

“Yeah Archie’s right, she not like other girls.”  Chop said in disbelief.  “You gotta marry that one.”

“I know.”  Finn agreed. 

 

 

Later that night Rae and Finn, slightly tipsy, found themselves sitting on the lounge alone, listening to the drunken laughter coming from the foosball table in the other room.  It was girls versus boys and the girls were winning. 

“Again!”  Chop commanded when the girls had beaten Archie and Chop for the second time.  She sat facing him, banging on about her biology class and he was smiling, watching the way her mouth moved. 

“Wait, so what’s recessive again?”  He asked her and she went over the genetics stuff she learned again.  Stuff he already knew.  He was excellent at science, always got an A on everything he did for it.  But Rae needed to talk about it more to get it properly, so he listened.  She kept talking as she crawled on top of him and straddled him, her skirt riding up slightly, her hands playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. 

“And then there’s dominance.”  She said as she settled into his lap moving her hips suggestively.  He ran his hands up her thighs and prepared to listen to her, but she only looked at him, her mouth open, her eyes on his lips.  He put a hand to her face gently caressing her skin.

“Have I told you today girl, that you’re beautiful?” 

“Yes.”  She said, “But I never mind hearing it.”

“Well I’d better tell you then.”  He grinned, “You are by far, the most beautiful girl in the world.”

“You haven’t seen every girl in the world.”

“Don’t need to.”  His other hand came up to stroke her hair, “I know.” 

“Oh and what else do you know?”  She kissed him and he sighed appreciatively.

“You’re the smartest girl.”

“Oh right.”

“And the funniest.”  He answered in between kisses, his hands starting to find their way up her skirt.

“Uh huh.” 

“And you’re strong.”

“I know.” 

“And you’re far too sexy for me to handle.”  He groaned as he traced along her vagina through her tights.

“Is that right?”  She kissed him deeply.

“Didn’t I ask you to stop wearing these fucking tights?”

“Might have.”  Her hand slipped down his chest and undid his fly, popping his cock out of his pants.

“Rae.”  He breathed as she let go of his cock, let it sit underneath her as she rocked back and forth on his lap, her hand back in his hair.  Her skirt covered everything so Finn left it as it was his bare cock rubbing against her stockinged cunt, playing dangerously, he took a sly look at the kitchen door; the gang were on the other side of that door. 

“Yes?”  She asked innocently.

“You’re a dirty tease.”  He groaned.

“Might be.”  She grinned.  His hands cupped her vagina with frustration.

“These fucking tights.”  He groaned and she groaned in sympathy and teasing.

“Oh I know.  Terrible aren’t they?”

“This will not do Miss Earl.”  Rae’s jaw dropped as she felt his strong fingers tearing a hole in her tights.  His fingers came up against her underwear and he tore them violently. 

“Jesus.”  She gasped. 

“Much better.”  He said as he slipped his cock into her. 

“I can’t believe you’re doing this here.”  She shot her eyes to the kitchen door, they were still laughing and joking on the other side of it. 

“Course I am.”  He said lustily, thrusting up from underneath her.  She whimpered softly, and he grinned smuttily before kissing her lips forcefully.  She moaned throatily and Finn shushed her quietly, his hand going under her shirt to cup her breast. 

They heard the door opening and Rae went to get off Finn but he stopped her and she realised she had to stay where she was; with him deep inside of her, or else she’d leave Finn with his cock hanging out.  Archie walked in laughing.

“Oh right, you two making out again!”  He laughed, “Do you wanna play a round of foosball?”

“Nope.”  Rae said with a slightly higher voice than normal.  Archie sat down next to them.

“Me either, I’m sick of getting me arse kicked!”  He grinned.

“Yeah.”  Finn said softly.

“What are you guys doing tomorrow?”  Archie asked as he grabbed a handful of chips.  Rae cleared her throat.

“Um… well Mrs Vines is making me bring Finn up to speed.  So probably homework.”  She nodded shifting a little to get more comfortable and Finn groaned slightly. 

“Oh right!”  Archie nodded, “Can’t believe you’re doing advanced!”  Archie said.

“Aye.”  Finn nodded and tried not to groan as Rae shifted again. 

“D’you reckon you will go to uni?”  Archie asked, “We can be roommates.”  He grinned.

“I’ll be a year behind now.”  Finn looked ahead, not wanting to look at Archie while his cock was deep inside of his girlfriend. 

“I might defer for a year.”  Archie shrugged.  Finn nodded but said nothing.  “You can get off him you know!”  Archie laughed as he looked at Rae sitting on Finn looking supremely uncomfortable. 

“No… no that’s fine.”  She said and tried to smile.  Archie furrowed his brows and looked at them for a moment. 

“What’s wrong?”  He asked them, Finn frowned and shook his head.

“Nothing.”  Rae said conspicuously.  Archie looked at them again, both fully clothed, hugging up.  They weren’t fighting or fucking, which seemed to be all these two did.  So what was wrong?  He watched Rae shift again and noticed Finn close his eyes and take a breath.

“OH MY GOD!”  Archie hissed loudly at them.  “You’re fucking right now aren’t you?”

“No!”  Rae said.

“Yes.”  Finn answered.  “Now fuck off.” 

“Un-fucking-believable.”  Archie got up and banged through the kitchen door.

“They’re fucking on your couch, Chop!”

“Oh no.”  Rae blushed and Finn buried his face in her breasts in frustration, but that didn’t help, it only made him harder and he thrust into her as hard as he could, she gasped.

“Finn!”

“You what?”  Chop asked.  They heard him heading towards the door.

“Chop!”  It was Izzy, “You can’t go in there!”

“We haven’t even fucked on that lounge!”  Chop replied.  They heard Archie laughing, Izzy joining in.  Finn tuned them out and focused on how lovely she looked when she blushed, her full lips open with pleasure and thrust into faster.  His fingers found the ragged hole he’d torn and snaked in to find her clitoris.  She groaned and he gently shushed her again. 

“You gonna cum for me girl?”  He whispered to her and she nodded putting her hand in her mouth as her breath grew ragged, but he shook his head and offered up his hand for her to bite.  She sunk her teeth into the side of his hand and whimpered as she grew closer.  He felt himself growing closer and intensified the speed of his fingers, she groaned slightly, her chest heaving as her legs started to shake, he felt his own climax speeding towards him and he watched her eyes rolling back as she came, biting his hand hard enough to make him cry out in pain softly as his orgasm ripped through him.  They looked at each other with sinuous smiles and kissed. He reached down and put his wet cock back in his pants and pulled a bit of a face.  She laughed as she slowly got off him.

“I’ll just clean up.”  She whispered and slipped off into the bathroom.  Finn looked down at his pants.  There was a small wet spot near the groin.  He grinned satisfied and went into the kitchen.  They were still playing foosball.

“Arsehole!”  Chop shot at him and Finn just grinned. 

“You’re bleeding!”  Izzy pointed at his hand, four sets of eyes turned to him as he held up his hand to look at it.

“Oh right.”  He saw Rae’s bite print.  “She’s a screamer.”  He grinned.  “But if she have to be quiet.”  He nodded to the bite mark.  Chop looked impressed, Izzy less so.  Chloe rolled her eyes and Archie shook his head.  And Finn kept grinning. 

When Rae came into the kitchen they all made jeering noises.  But Finn smiled at her and she shook her head.

“So is this like a walk of shame?”  Chloe laughed. 

“More like a stride of pride.”  Rae shot back.  They all laughed.

“Just got laid parade.”  Archie added. 

“The took off my pants dance!”  Chop continued the idea.

“Just got cock time to rock!”  Chloe laughed.

“Just sunk the pink, time to drink!”  Chop laughed and poured more drinks for everyone. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Heirate Mich’ by Rammstein _

 

She hugged him, grateful for his company. 

“It’s nice to finally get back into your house.”  He joked as he walked into the house. 

“Oh Archie, I’m sorry” Rae pulled a sad face.  “I know me and Finn have been at it.”  She sat down on the lounge and he sank down beside her, “but it’s just been a real emotional time.”  She tried to explain, “We broke up, we got back together, we started therapy, I got a stalker.”  She shook her head, “he’s been real protective.  And I’m glad.”

“I understand.  I do.  I just missed you.”  He ginned, “and I know how protective he is, he had me at the gym punching shit in me free period the s’morning to make sure I were good enough to defend you tonight.” 

“Sorry.”  She pulled an apologetic face and he shook his head.

“Where is Cro Magnon man anyway?”  He joked. 

“Oi.”  She corrected with a grin.

“Hey, if he’s gonna keep using his fists, I’m gonna call him a caveman.”

“Yeah well you try getting a dead mouse delivered as a love gift and see how you feel.”  She nodded at him.

“Yeah alright.”  He had to agree.  “So where is he?”  Rae looked thoroughly unimpressed.

“Study date with Stacey.”

“Ugh.”  Archie sympathised.  “Right, The Breakfast Club it is.”  He smiled, finally getting his way with the video choice.  He put the tape in the machine and they settled down,

“You do know I’ve seen it right?”

“Don’t matter.” 

“Oh hi Archie.”  Linda came in looking exhausted.  Rae fretted when she saw the puffiness around her mum’s eyes.  “You staying for dinner?”

“I’m here till Finn gets back.”  He shrugged.

“Are we going to be feeding boys forever?”  Linda turned to Rae.

“Maybe.”  Rae shrugged, “until the stalker goes.”

“Well he hasn’t sent anything for a few days.”  Linda stared at her.

“Finn wants to wait a few weeks before we decide he’s done with me.”  Linda gave an exhausted sigh.

“Alright, but I can’t afford the petrol for your car this week, feeding Finn isn’t cheap.”  Rae was about to protest but saw how miserable her mum looked. 

“That’s alright.  I’ll walk to school.”

“I can drop by.”  Archie offered.  Linda nodded and went back into the kitchen.  She heard Karim saying something and Aiesha cooing before the door closed.  She’d probably get moved up to her bedroom after dinner.  But for now they had the lounge room to themselves. 

“Archie.”  Rae said softly, “how close were Finn and Stacey.”

“I dunno.”  He said softly.  “Not as close as he is with you.”  He grinned at her.  “He wanted her, there’s no doubt about that.  But he didn’t chase her like he chased you.”  Rae smiled at that and lowered her eyes.  “She kinda landed in his lap and he were happy to take advantage of that.”  He shrugged.

“He told me he were a bit of a prick back then.”  Archie furrowed his brows in thought.

“Not really.”  Archie said.  “I mean he were lucky.”  He said with a smile, “At 16, his skin cleared up, while the rest of us still had zits, and he kinda grew into his face so his teeth didn’t buck out so much.”  Rae grinned, “and… well he kinda just filled out you know… just sorta became manly.”  Archie scratched his ear, “He just became what he is, you know, almost overnight he went from scrawny, buck-tooth, zit boy to fittest boy in school.”  Archie looked at Rae and sighed, “And I think it went to his head for a while.  A lot o’ girls started noticing him and he enjoyed that.  Of course.”  Rae lowered her eyes and picked at the cuticles of her nails.  “He weren’t a prick though.  He didn’t really use girls as much as other guys I know.  He didn’t go after virgins or you know, pressure girls or any o’ that.  And he wanted to have sex for the first time with a girlfriend not just some random girl he’d picked up to play with for the week.” 

“Play with for the week?”

“He did brag a little.”

“The girl that he didn’t know the name of?”

“That were at a gig.”  Archie said.  “He were high I think, and the girl kissed him and went down in the middle of a fucking mosh pit.”

“Holy shit!”  Rae exclaimed.

“He actually stopped her afore he came cos he wanted to watch the band.”  He shrugged, “I think he finished it later on in the parking lot though.”  He looked apologetic and Rae shrugged.  “He gave her his number, she never called.”

“Right.”  They watched the movie in silence for a while. 

“You know he were sick o’ Stacey after about a week o’ dating her.”

“Really?”  Archie nodded, his eyes on the screen.

“Said she weren’t his type o’ girl.”

“Then why’d he stay with her?”

“I think he were determined to actually have a girlfriend for once, you know?”

“He said he got sick o’ all the girls and stuff after Stace.”  Rae understood.

“No, he were sick o’ it afore then, he just didn’t know it.  And I think there’s a lot o’ pressure on boys like him to fuck everything with a vagina, you know?  Boys talk; they brag.  And Finn’s good at that kinda talk, and he likes being good at that kinda talk.  Even now.  Perhaps especially now.”  He watched the way Rae furrowed her brow, and smiled at her, “although he has stopped talking in the locker room now.  It’s only wi’ Chop and me he brags.  He more private about it now.”

“That must be fun for you.”  Archie pulled a face.

“Well I do see you a little differently Rae.”  He grinned.

“Oh no!”  She blushed.  And he nudged her.  They chuckled together.

“At least I know I’m not the only one in the gang that swallows.”  They laughed, both blushing. 

“Tell me all about Tom!”  She bit her bottom lip and turned to Archie.

“I spent most of the weekend at his place.”  Archie grinned.  “He likes fucking.  And he likes it rough.”

“Aye, and what do you like?”

“Aye…”  Archie stoped and looked at her with a strange look.

“What?”

“His mum used to say Aye.”  Archie smiled, “She’s Scottish.”  Rae could barely breathe she was listening so intently.  “And she had the most beautiful laugh.  And she could sing.  And Finn adored her.  And she were particular about Finn saying aye instead of yes.  She joked that it made him more Scottish.  He stopped saying aye for a bit after she left.”  He said sadly, “But he’s using it a lot more now that you’re around.”  Archie looked at her, “He uses it when he’s happy.”  Rae smiled slowly.

“Did you know Grace?”  Archie’s brow furrowed and he scratched his face slowly.

“Gracie?”  He said suddenly.  “Finn’s sister.”  He said as if really having to work for the memories, “I think his mum took her?”  He shook his head, “No that’s not right… cos I remember his mum, but I don’t really remember her.”  He stared at the floor for a long while.  He shook his head.  “No.  It’s so odd.” 

“Not really.”  Rae said softly, knowing what had happened.  “Anyway, back to Tom!”

“He’s far too sexy for me.”

“Rubbish!” 

“And he makes me cum and he teaches me to box and I wish we was going out.  But I don’t think we are.”

“That shite.” 

“Nah it’s alright, we’ll get there.”

“What’s taking it up the bum like?”

“You what?”

“I think Finn…”  She paused and nodded suggestively.

“You think Finn wants to try anal sex?”

“Try saying louder, not sure me mum heard it.”   Archie laughed and turned his eyes back to the tv.

“Anal is really good.”  He smiled, “at first your body says, no that’s not gonna happen.  But if you just relax and take your time, it’s fucking amazing.”

“Right.”  Rae bit her bottom lip in consideration.

“Don’t do it just cos he wants to.”  Archie said, “Only do it if you do.  Otherwise you’ll be too tense and it’ll hurt.”

“It’s not like he’s pressuring me.”  She said, “I just don’t want him to get bored.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that Rae.” 

“So Tom likes it rough?”  Rae changed the topic back to Tom.

“Quite rough!” 

“Oh yeah?”  Archie nodded and turned away from her, lifting up his shirt.  Rae’s jaw dropped as she saw the bruises on his back.

“Oh my god Archie.”  She said worried.  “Are you alright?”

“It looks worse than it is!”  He grinned.  “I’m fine.  I love fucking him!” 

“Alright.”  She said still unconvinced.

“You leave scratch marks on Finn, and that bite in his hand!”

“Alright, aright!”  She laughed.  Rae put her feet up on the table and Archie sat back and they linked arms.  Archie thought about what Finn had said at Chop’s place on Saturday.  He worried that he loved Rae more than she loved him. 

“D’you love me best mate Rae?”  He asked softly.  Rae turned her face to him. 

“Being the protective best mate?”

“Yeah.” 

“I do Archie.  I do love him.”  Archie nodded and smiled at her.

“Good.  Cos he‘s been in love with you since the pool party.  He thinks he were just having a perve at your tits, but I knew better.”  Archie smiled at her, “I could see him falling in love with your strength right in front o’ me.”

“Strength.”  Rae said softly with a huge, fond, smile.  “He told me he liked me cos o’ me strength.”  She explained.

“I know him well.”  Archie grinned.

“It’s so weird to think o’ him having a crush on me for so long.”

“Why?”

“Cos he so perfect!”

“Look I don’t know about all that stuff.  Cos I think you’re pretty perfect Rae.”  He shrugged as she smiled, loving him so much, “but what I do know, is that he were right mess over you for a real long time.”  He nudged her, “still is a bit.”  Then he laughed, “Actually a lot.”  And they both laughed.  “I don’t know about all the ins and outs of it Rae.  But I know he’s very deeply in love with you.  So you better love him!” 

“But he hasn’t told me that he loves me.”  She said softly.

“Oh.”  Archie looked confused.  “I don’t know why he hasn’t said it Rae.” 

“Maybe you’re wrong.”

“I’m-” 

There was a loud thud at the door and Archie turned to look at it mid-sentence.  Rae jumped and then sighed angrily before getting up to go to the door.  She opened the door.  There was a large bird on the stoop.  Clearly dead.  Archie came over and looked.

“That’s a Hen Harrier.”  He said softly.  “Is it from your stalker?”  Car tyres squealed and they heard a car speeding off, Archie ran out to try and see it, but it had already turned a corner and gone.  “That was your stalker!”  Archie called to her.

“There’s no card Archie!”  She said.  “I think it probably just hit the door… Poor thing.” 

“Card?”  He asked as he came back to her.

“Yeah, there’s always a card, with a heart drawn on it.” 

“Oh right.”  Archie said and laughed, relieved.  “Poor little guy, must o’ got lost and confused.”  He picked up the bird and then instantly dropped it.

“What?”

“Its heart’s been cut out Rae.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘No Suprises’ - Radiohead _

 

_Life is such a funny thing._

_Sometimes it feels like you’re just floating around in a sea of nothing.  But then you see someone you know._

_A place that’s familiar like._

_It’s so strange to feel like there’s cotton wool wrapped around my heart._

_I wonder if I should cut me hair off real short like?_

_Just shave it all off._

_Bye bye hair._

_Down the drain with you._

_People talk about darkness creeping up through their innards._

_I’ve heard me own best mates talking about it._

_How sadness can grow._

_How you can feel filled up with emptiness._

_What a strange idea._

_But it makes sense._

_I barely feel as though me feet are touching the ground most days._

_Today is a bit different though_

_Today feels so different._

_Today is… somewhat of an ending._

_When I saw myself in the mirror.  I couldn’t recognise me own face._

_Who is this person looking back at me?_

_That’s not my nose._

_Those aren’t my eyes…_

_Those lips… they’re not right… my voice could never come out of that mouth._

_Who are you person staring back at me?_

_Are you strong?_

_Are you brave?_

_You need to be both._

_You need to be very strong._

_And oh so brave._

_Or you‘re not gonna make it._

_And your insides will fill up with it._

_Will fill up with nothingness._

_A different type of nothingness._

_Stranger in the mirror.  Are you strong?  Are you brave?_

_I hope you’re stronger and braver than me…_

_I wonder if your innards can be filled up with death?_

_What a stupid thought.  Don’t be so stupid._

_You’re always the dumb one._

_I wonder what they’ll all be like without me?_

_He’ll be lost.  For a while.  But he’s stronger than he thinks.  He’ll be fine._

_And she’ll have no one to laugh with._

_And she’ll have no one to listen when the others won’t._

_And he‘ll have no one to keep in him line.  Cheeky bugger._

_And he’ll have no one to love lame movies with._

_But they’ll have each other._

_If you don’t make it._

_They’ll have each other._

_If this thing growing in you won’t be killed…_

_Killed… how ridiculous…_

_Am I a knight… with shining armour…?_

_Is there a dragon in me…?_

_Am I not the fair maiden… terrorised by this dragon?_

_Then who’s the knight?_

_Am I brave?_

_Am I strong?_

_I don’t know._

_I don’t understand how there can be this thing inside of me._

_How do I tell them?_

She reached her fingers out to the door of the Chippy. 

They were all in there. 

Finn was turned in towards Rae, as always, his arm around her shoulders protectively. 

Archie was speaking.

“It’s fucking heart was cut out.”

“Fuck.”  Chop said.  “This guy means fucking business Rae Rae.”

“What’s wrong?”  Chloe looked up at Izzy.

“Guys…” Izzy said.

_How do I ever tell them…?_

“I’ve got leukaemia.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Nutshell’ – Alice In Chains _

 

He spun the beermat on its end again.  It fell flat and he picked it up and spun it again.  Another gulp of beer.

_Still not numb enough._

He took another huge gulp.  He spun the beermat and a hand slammed down on it to stop it.  He turned to see Finn looking at him.

“Alright?”  He asked boozily.  Finn looked unimpressed and sympathetic at the same time.  He sat down on the bar stool next to him and motioned for a pint. 

“Alright Chop?”  He asked. 

“Not drunk enough yet.”

“Oh aye?”  Finn asked, “Funny cos Danny says you ain’t been at work for the last three days.”  Finn looked him up and down, “and by the looks o’ you, you’ve been here, drinking since Izzy told us that-”

“Don’t say it.”  Finn glared at him for a moment and then let his breath out, wiping his face agitatedly.  He turned to his pint and took a gulp.  He didn’t know what to say, only that Rae had sent him down here to get Chop and he wasn’t leaving without him. 

“They have to do more tests.”  Finn said calmly and Chop gritted his teeth.  “Gotta see how far it’s spread.” 

“Shut it Finn.”  Chop scrunched up the beermat.

“She had a spinal tap yester.”  Finn said.  “I thought that were just a parody rock band, you know?”  Finn sighed.  “Turns out it’s actually a really painful medical procedure.”  He looked at Chop from the corner of his eyes, “it’s to see if it’s gotten into her spinal cord or her brain.”  Chop finished his beer in one long gulp and ordered another.  Finn kept looking ahead.  “Rae tells me it hurt so much that Izzy cried out in pain.  Says she squeezed Rae’s hand so hard it hurt.  Says Izzy cried out for you, mate.” 

“I don’t want’a hear it.”

“Well that’s not good enough.”  Finn turned to him.  “Either you love Izzy or you don’t?”  Finn snapped at him.

“Course I love her!”  Chop retorted angrily.

“Well you’re acting like you don’t!”

“Hey fuck you Finn!”  Chop jumped off his stool furiously, “You don’t know shit about it!” 

“Maybe I don’t!”  Finn stood and squared up, narrowing his eyes in disgust at Chop, “But I know there’s no fucking way, I’d be at this fucking pub drinking me liver dead while me girl’s in hospital crying and fearing for her fucking life!”  Chop hit him.  Hard.  Finn had seen it coming, but let him have it.  Finn straightened up and put his hand to his right eye.  He shook his head.  And grabbed Chop by the collar, physically dragging him from the pub.  “You get your fucking arse outside boy.”  He pushed Chop out the door forcefully and Chop fell backwards, skidding along the ground on his arse.  He scrambled up cursing Finn.

“You cunt!”  Chop screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.  “YOU FUCKING CUNT!”  He threw another punch at Finn but Finn blocked it. 

“CHOP!”  He yelled at him but Chop was screaming at him, punching him again.  This one landing on his ribcage.  Finn blocked the next and then knew he had no choice but to jab Chop in the face.  Chop stumbled back and looked up, blood pouring from his nose.  He put a shaking hand up to his nose and saw the blood on his hand.  Finn tried to be somewhere in between ready to defend himself and ready to support Chop.  He stared at the blood and then looked up at Finn.

“Why didn’t I see it sooner?”  He asked, he looked back down at the blood, “My girl’s gonna die Finn.”  His voice cracked and Finn lowered his fists slowly.  “She gonna die.” 

“You don’t know that.”  Finn tried to say but it was drowned out by a slow painful cry from Chop.  He stepped forward and fell at Finn, Finn barely catching him before he hit the ground, as it was Finn ended up going down with him, landing painfully hard on his knees, cradling Chop carefully.  Chop’s whole body shook as he cried, and Finn held him, his eyes wide open with shock, he had no idea what to say, he so wished Rae was here. 

“You don’t know if Izzy will die.”  Finn said after a long while.  “But whether she will or no, you need to be by her side.”  Finn patted him gently on the back, “You know that.” 

It was probably the first time a fist fight had ended like this at the pub, two men holding each other, one weeping like a child.  After a long time Chop went silent.  He sniffed hard, wiped his face and sat up.  He looked away from Finn.  Finn lit a cigarette and handed it to Chop, who took it without a word. 

“Alright?”  Finn said as he lit another for himself. 

“No.”  Chop said wishing he could just be numb. 

“Yeah.”  Finn agreed. 

“Why’d it happen to her, Finn?”  Chop asked bitterly.  “Why not some fucking arsehole, who deserves to die?”  He shook his head angrily, “Why her?”  Finn didn’t know how to answer, he thought for a moment and shook his head.

“I dunno Chop.”

“It’s not right.”  He frowned, his face screwed up with grief, “shit like this should happen to bad people.”  He started to rock a little and Finn worried.  “Makes me think I did something… that I made it happen to her.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I done so much shit in my life.  So many bad things… she the one good thing I got Finn.”  Tears started to flow again, “and she gonna be taken from me.” 

“You gotta stop speaking like she practically already in the ground Chop!”  Finn said.  “They think she got an ok chance.”  Chop scoffed.

“An ok chance.”  He took a deep, shaky breath.

“Chop, even if she had no chance… you still know where you belong.”  Chop nodded.

“Yeah.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘The Ship Song’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds _

 

Finn helped Chop get up and they walked silently, smoking to Izzy’s house. 

When they got there, Izzy’s mother opened the door and swept Chop into her arms. 

There were no words said.  There was nothing to say. 

Victoria, Izzy’s mother grabbed a wet cloth for Chop, and he roughly wiped the blood off his face. 

Chop, tears in his eyes, turned back to look at Finn, he nodded to him, before turning to climb the stairs to Izzy’s room.  Finn nodded to Izzy’s parents and Victoria handed him a cold bottle of coke from the fridge to put on his eye.  He thanked her and followed Chop up the stairs. 

Chop opened the door to see Izzy curled up on her arm chair by the window.  Archie was sitting up in her bed, Chloe next to him and Rae was sitting at her desk. 

She turned to look at him.

“Arnold.”  She said softly as he crossed the room to her. 

“Isabella.”  He fell on his knees in front of her and she wrapped her arms around him, his arms grabbing her to him tightly.  Finn stood in the doorway, the coke held to his face.  Rae looked up at him with a questioning look, he shook his head in reply, and motioned for everyone to leave.  Rae nodded and got Archie’s attention who nodded silently at her.  They left quietly, closing the door behind them. 

“I’m sorry it took me so long.”  Chop said softly, not daring to look in her eyes. 

“I don’t care as long as you’re here now.”  She said in a low urgent voice.  He looked up at her and she kissed him.

“I been so scared.’  He said, tears on his face, holding her as tight as he could.

“Me too.”  She whispered.

They clung to each other in silence, tears falling down their cheeks, words left unsaid. 

“I love you girl.”  He said softly.

“I love you too.” 

“We’re gonna get through this, and I’m gonna make you me wife, right?”  She nodded, fresh tears coming to her eyes.  “And we’re gonna have 8 sons and 8 daughters.”  She laughed through her tears, “and we’ll get fat and old together.  Surrounded by a million grandkids.”  He kissed her, “And we’ll be happy.”  He stroked her face, “There’s no other way this is gonna go.  Ok baby girl?”

“Alright.”  She said in a small voice.  “But I want more girls than boys.”

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do.” 

He stroked her hair and took in her face as if he’d never before seen it.  As if it would be the last time.

“What happens now?”  He asked. 

“Tests.  See how bad it is.”  He nodded.  “Then treatment.”  She said almost despondently. 

“What… what treatment?”

“Chemotherapy.  Radiation.”  She took a deep breath.  “I’m so scared Chop.”  She shook her head, “What if-”

“No.”  He said resolutely.  “No ‘what ifs.’ ” He stroked her face, feeling the skin in painful new detail.  “We do this one day at a time until it’s done.”

“But what if-”

“Izzy, you’re love of me fucking life right, there is no what if.” 

He pulled her into his arms gently and held her to him as if he could shield her from the world with his arms. 

As if he could protect her from the cancer inside of her with his love. 

As if his will and desire alone could make her live through this.

 

 

 

 ________

 

 

Thank you to the ever lovely whatthefuckisthisfuckingfuckery.tumblr.com for the French translations. 

 

Transcript of ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’, if you’re interested <http://afronord.tripod.com/plays/R-G.html>

 

Thank you to this post for inspiring me with the walk of shame!

<http://chriscolferiseverything.tumblr.com/post/40321738461/positive-alternative-to-the-walk-of-shame>

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6 - Lightning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the sixth part of an 8 part season 3 fanfic.
> 
>  
> 
> If you can, read with the suggested music.
> 
> cheers m'dears

 

_‘My Father’s House’ by Bruce Springsteen_

 

Finn swallowed hard.  His heart was hammering in his chest like he’d been running for hours.  His stomach clenched and churned. 

He picked brutally at the loose skin around his fingers and stared at the light in the front window. 

He felt tears pricking his eyes.  The sting of his painfully bruised right eye did nothing to help this.  Nor did the bitterly biting wind that whipped around his face.  He ran his tongue along his teeth thoughtfully, trying to calm his nerves. 

_A week._

_Over a week._

He felt Rae’s fingers curl around his and he turned to her.

“I’m right by your side Finn.” 

He looked back up at the house. 

Memories of what had happened in those walls came to him and he felt a painful stabbing in his heart. 

“Alright.”  He said softy and walked up to the front door.  He raised his hands to knock and hesitated.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”  Rae said softly but Finn shook his head.

“No I do want to.”  He sighed sadly.  “Stuff with Izzy’s kinda put shit in perspective.”  He said morosely.

“I mean… we can wait until you feel more ready.”  Rae clarified.  Finn thought about that for a moment, looking at the door.  He turned his eyes to her.

“Thank you for being here.”  He said with a small smile and she returned the smile sympathetically. 

He turned back to the door and knocked it softly, but resolutely.  He had a key, of course, but he had to knock.  This didn’t feel like it was his home right now. 

There was a stirring within the house, the sound of someone coming to the door. 

Finn fidgeted with his sleeves, bit his bottom lip and tried to steady himself. 

Janice opened the door, glass of wine in her hand, a tired expression on her face.  The minute her eyes fell on them a smile lit up her eyes, even though it barely touched her lips. 

“It’s so good to see you both.”  She barely breathed.  Rae let Finn’s hand go so he could enter the house first and he stuffed his fists into his jacket pockets and fidgeted on the doorstep.  Janice motioned for them to come in but he hesitated, looking through to the lounge room.  His father was sitting on the lounge, looking up at him, his hand still on a book of some sort, his other hand holding a glass of wine. 

Finn watched as his dad slowly stood up, putting the glass of wine on the table, the book left abandoned. 

Gary stepped once, twice, slowly coming closer to his son.  Before he knew it he was at the door, his arms around Finn’s body pulling him into a tight embrace. 

Finn wrapped his arms around his dad and squeezed his eyes shut as relief, mingled with shame and regret swept through his body. 

“Da.”  His voice came out in a strangled sob and Gary held him firmer.  “I’m sorry.”  Gary made a soft noise, obviously unable to reply yet.   Janice and Rae exchanged a relieved look.

“Oh my boy.  Not your fault.”  He said as he put his hand up to the back of Finn’s head and held him protectively.  “It was my fault.  You were right.”  He said, his voice wavering with emotion.  Finally, he drew back and held Finn at arm’s length looking at him.

“What happened to you face?”

“Oh…” Finn shook his head.  “Chop.  It’s nothing.”  Finn said uninterested.  He didn’t want to talk about that now. 

“Since when could Chop land a punch that good on you?”  Gary sounded concerned and he held Finn’s chin so he could move his son’s head around for a better view.

“Since I let him.”  Finn shrugged, “it’s not important.”  Finn said urgently.  “Dad I’m so sorry.”  He saw the bruising along his father’s jawline and lowered his eyes, ashamed.

“Don’t think on it.”  Gary said and drew him into the house, he turned to Rae, “Please come in.”  He said to her before focusing back on Finn. 

“I’ll just head up to my room.”  Janice said softly, starting to head out of the room. 

“Please don’t.”  Finn turned and looked at her, “you’re part of this family.”  Janice turned her eyes from Finn to Gary, who nodded gently. 

“Alright.”  She sat down in the chair the she had claimed as her own when she first moved in.  Finn sat down on the couch, and instantly reached out for Rae to sit beside him.  She did so, carefully, not getting too comfortable.  Gary sat in his chair, never taking his eyes off Finn. 

“I shouldn’t o’ hit you.  And-”

“Please don’t worry.”  Gary gently dismissed Finn’s words.

“Badly bruised ribs.”  Janice quietly said, “2 back teeth knocked out, and a dislocated jaw.”  Finn and Gary both looked over to her.  “Sorry, but if I’m to be part of this family in any way whatsoever, I shan’t be lying or concealing the truth or not communicating.”  She looked at Finn sternly, “you’re damn right you shouldn’t have hit him.”

No one spoke.  The words hung in the air as Finn looked down and pulled at the cuticles around his nails.  Rae noticed his fingers bleeding again and gently stopped him by laying her hand in his.  He took it fiercely, needing her touch to steady himself.

“The dentist fixed those teeth right up.”  Gary tried to comfort Finn.

“You’re right.”  Finn said to Janice in a low shame-filled voice. 

“To be fair,” Gary said, “It was a uniquely and highly charged situation.” 

“No dad.”  Finn said, “Janice is right.  I’m not that 10 year old punching your chest anymore.  I should take responsibility for me fists.” 

“No.”  Gary agreed, “You’re not that 10 year old kid anymore.”  He leaned forward and picked up the photograph album he’d been looking at when Finn knocked the door.  “But part of me has been treating you like you were all these years.”  He handed the closed album to Finn.  “When Grace died, my world got very bleak.  And I didn’t want that for you.”  He paused and took a sip of wine and blinked back tears, “Your mother was furious at me when I told her we should let you forget.  But your Nan agreed with me, so I stood my ground.  Your mum… She screamed at me…”

“And burned all the photos of Grace.  I remember it.  Very vaguely.”  Finn’s voice was so fragile that Rae felt herself moving closer to him to try and give him physical support. 

“Not all.”  Gary nodded at the album in Finn’s hands.  “I’ve had that up in my room all these years, hidden away.”  He shook his head, a tear finally sneaking down his proud face, “I never should have put her pictures in the back of a dark cupboard like that.”  His eyes fell to the album and Finn looked down at it.  Slowly he opened up the first page and felt a piercing well of pain deep inside of himself as he saw a picture of himself as a 4 year old carefully trying to hold a tiny baby, their mother wrapping her arms around him, helping him support Grace.  Finn traced his fingers down the picture and took a shuddering breath.  The next one was of his father holding Grace, looking at her lovingly.  Finn stared at each photo for a long time before slowly turning the page.  It was him, looking over the edge of the crib, reaching in to stroke Grace’s face.  The next photo was just of Grace, sleeping on her stomach.  Finn looked up at his father.

“Why did she die?”  Gary shook his head slowly in response.

“I don’t know.”  He said in a pained voice, “the doctor said it was Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.  But all I can figure is that means that they don’t know.  She just died.”  Gary took a deep breath.  “Apparently there’s nothing really that we could have done.”  Rae watched him blink back tears and subtly wipe his nose.  “You never stop blaming yourself though.”  He said in a low murmur.  Finn looked down at the next photo of his dad asleep on the lounge, Grace lying on her stomach, on his stomach, and little 4 year old Finn was curled up beside her, his body by his dad’s side. 

“How old was she?”

“She was 7 months old when-” Gary paused and took another sip of wine.  “You were 4.”  He said after he’d drained his glass.  Gary watched his son silently crying as he slowly turned the pages. 

“Finn… what you read in that letter.”  Finn sniffed as his father continued, “Kenzie… your mum… she always thought that it was her fault.  If only she’d been at the side of the crib when Gracie stopped breathing, maybe she could have saved her.  That’s what she’d always say to me.”  He swallowed hard and kept going, “over the years, she became more and more angry at everything she thought had taken her away from Grace’s side that day.”

“Like me.”  He almost whimpered the words and Gary felt a deep pain at the way this harmed his son.  He wished he’d thrown the letter out years ago.  Finn should have never seen it. 

“You were an energetic 4 year old kid.”  Gary said, “It was not your fault that you were an energetic 4 year old child.”  Finn shook his head slowly.  And Rae squeezed his hand.  “You listen to me Finn.”  Gary said firmly, “Grace’s death was not your fault.”  Gary took the bottle of wine and poured himself another glass, “How could you blame a 4 year old child for anything?”

The question hung heavily in the room. 

“Mum did.”  Finn looked back down at the photographs. 

“You mother loves you Finn.”  Gary willed him to understand.  “Your mother and I were still kids when we had you.”  He shook his head, “and Grace was not expected either.  But both of you are loved so much.”  He paused, not wanting to say what he had to say, “And you’re right, I failed your mother.  I was young and I didn’t know what to do for her.  I did try.”  Gary looked down at his glass of wine, “but I was lost, really.  I watched my vibrant, beautiful, old-soul, wife become a shell.  And I didn’t know how to save her.”  He looked at Finn’s face, seeing so much of Kenzie in the shape of his eyes, the turn of his nose.  “She wasn’t herself when she wrote that letter Finn.”  He furrowed his brows in grief, “she hadn’t been for a while.”  Gary hung his head, the guilt he’d carried with him since Grace’s death weighed on him, and Finn saw it clearly.  “She was very unwell.”  He looked up at Finn, “But I swear to you, I tried everything I could.  It just wasn’t enough.  I wasn’t enough.”  Rae felt Finn’s body shudder with emotion caused by that statement. 

“Mr Nelson.  Rae said, before she’d realised she was going to say anything.  She held his gaze for a moment, unsure what to say, just knowing that she couldn’t leave that sentence unchallenged.  Not when it was Finn’s biggest fear.  “Someone loving you won’t magically cure you if you’re mad.”  Rae said slowly.  She thought for a moment and then added, “You need therapy and medication…” she squeezed Finn’s hand.  “Were those options available for Mrs Nelson?”  She asked, and he had barely shook his head to say no, before Rae continued, “right… so if she’d broken her leg.”  Rae said more confident, “would you think that your love and support alone would heal it?”  She asked meaningfully, “or would you think she’d need a cast?”  She turned and looked at Finn, “it’s not a reflection on you if someone who is unwell needs expert help.  It don’t mean you’re not enough.”  Finn turned his face to her, his eyes filled with love and reached up and stroked her face. 

“Thanks.”  He said with a healing fragility that wouldn’t let him say another word; the emotion was too raw and thick in his throat.  Gary made a small sound and Rae looked over to him. 

“I am very glad Finn has you.”  He said with red eyes. 

“I’m sorry about-” Rae began.

“No.”  Gary said honestly. “No.  I’m glad Finn’s got someone like you in his corner.”

“Cups of tea all round?”  Janice asked and everyone agreed.  She went out to the kitchen and Finn turned to Gary.

“Da, can we put some pictures of Grace around the house?”  Gary smiled sadly.

“Yeah.”  He said with a nod.

“It won’t be too… I dunno… depressing for you?”

“I don’t need the pictures to think about her all the time and to remember exactly what she looks like, Finn.  If it’ll help you, we’ll put them up.”  Finn nodded thoughtfully, biting at his bottom lip viciously, pulling some lose skin off, as he looked back down at the pictures. 

“We have to have dinner with Rae’s mum.”  He said and turned a page in the album. 

“Really?”  Gary asked, sounding slightly scared.  He looked at Rae and she shrugged.

“It were probably easier for you when we weren’t in contact weren’t it?”  Rae joked and Gary looked at her incredulously before he started to laugh, the tension finally broken. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Kindergarten’ by Faith No More _

 

“How does it feel knowing that he cheated on you with your slut best mate?” 

It was Thursday and Rae was waiting for Finn to get out of his science class so they could share their free period together. 

Finn had been in a particularly good mood since he’d handed in his essay to Mrs Vines yesterday and proudly told her that she’d been right, he did get it all done early; he’d finished it all off on the weekend.  Except for More’s Utopia.  He pushed himself to finish that on Tuesday in his free.  It was so dry.  Interesting, but dry.  He’d asked Rae if they could start on the 1984 essay question he’d chosen in this free, so she’d already spread out all of her notes, the handout with the three possible 1984 essay questions was in her hand. 

She looked up at Stacey slowly.  She’d been hearing this shit all week. 

So had Finn.

It had made him far more sexual with Rae in public; every time he went to walk her to her next class a long, sexy, smouldering kiss would greet her, his hands always finding her arse.  Then he’d take her hand, or put his arm around her, and walk her to the door of her next class, another heated kiss, then he’d jog off to his own class.  It was his silent way of countering the rumours. 

For her part Chloe tried to make sure that she and Finn were never standing next to each other when the gang were together.  She loudly protested the rumour at every turn.  She had thought about telling everyone that she’d ‘done a Stacey’ and tried to kiss him but been rejected.  But she thought it would be better to not muddy the waters – to keep it crystal clear that there was nothing between her and Finn. 

Izzy and Archie were taking a similar tact as Chloe, denying it completely.  Loudly and constantly.  Although Archie was beginning to suspect that protesting it made people believe it more. 

Rae had said nothing. 

There was no doubt that this was a huge rumour.  The fittest boy in school was going out with a minger… and cheated on her with her hot best mate who was known to be a big slag… and the minger was still giving it up to him. 

Most gossip died down in a day or two, but Rae knew this one would hang around for a while.  It seemed like nearly everyone had asked her about it or commented on it to her.  She had said nothing.  Sometimes she’d say; ‘you’d have to ask Finn about that,’ or ‘ask Chloe what happened.’ 

The only person, besides teachers, that hadn’t mentioned it to her was Phillip.  He’d been blissfully silent on the subject in their writing sessions and had been generally cheery and lovely in performing arts classes, despite Finn scowling at him constantly.  She saw them trading words every time they were near each other and she wasn’t in earshot.  And she knew Finn was getting pissed off at him.  But Phillip seemed to backing off a little.  Or so Rae thought.  He wasn’t trying to touch her as much and he talked more about school work than anything else.  To Finn’s eyes, Phil was just settling into the trenches for a long protracted battle. 

Rae shook her head at Stacey.

“It don’t matter who he fucks Stace, it’s not gonna be you.”  She said with a sarcastic smile.

“I wouldn’t want someone who’d had a slut like Chloe.  Imagine all the diseases he’s got now.” 

“Oh, but it weren’t just him that fucked her Stacey.  It were a threesome.  Although…”  Rae said with a huge smile, “Chloe’s so hot I lost interest in Finn and just ate her cunt all night.”  Stacey pulled a disgusted face, “we totally les-ed out you know?”

“You’re a fucking liar.”  She hissed at Rae.

“I might be.”  Rae said, “But I might not be.”  Rae looked back down at her work.  Stacey watched her for a moment, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Wanna know how our study session went?”

“I know how your study session went.”  Finn had told her in exacting detail about the study session.  How he had insisted they go to the library, not her place.  How he’d insisted they sit on opposite sides of the table.  How she’d kept changing the topic off the work to personal things.  How he’d pretty much written the damn script himself, determined to get it done this session, so as to not need another one with her.  How she’d insisted they’d need rehearsal time since they had to perform it so soon.  He’d even given Rae his script, anxiously asking her to check if it was alright.  It had needed some work, but the basic premise had been sound. 

“Finn’s got a nice cock don’t he?’  Stacey changed tact.

“Yeah I know.”  Rae said sweetly, “better than you do.”

“Are you sure about that fat girl?”  Rae sighed internally but kept the sweet smile on her face.

“Look Stacey, I know you still like Finn.  I can’t blame you.  He is so…” She considered the right word to use for a moment, “dreamy, isn’t he?”  She folded her hands, imitating Kester and looked at Stacey sympathetically, “but you will never have him.  Ever.  Even if we break up.”  She shook her head slowly, “I suggest you find another boy to get your knickers wet over.”

“It’s only a matter of time before he realises just how mingy y’are.”

“Maybe.”  Rae shrugged, “but I’ll enjoy him and his beautiful cock, until he does.” 

“Won’t take long.”  Stacey said, “not only are you ugly, but he’s used to having a lot o’ girls… he’ll get so bored o’ you.”

Rae felt her insides churn.  She was afraid of that.  She was afraid that he’d suddenly realise she was fat and ugly too, but he was working hard to dispel that fear.  She hadn’t really told him that she worried that he’d get bored of having just one girl after all the many girls he’d had in the past… and all the many girls that were still open to him now.  Rae took a steadying breath and cocked her jaw up.

“You really think he’d get bored of a girl who loves a threesome?”  Rae alluded deliberately to the rumours. 

“Oh hey!”  Finn said in a happy tone, “fuck off Stacey!”  He grinned at her before sitting next to Rae, straddling the bench, scooting in to be as close to her as possible and taking her face in is hands before kissing her deeply and passionately. 

“Was it a threesome?”  Stacey asked Finn.  Finn didn’t look at her, he kept his eye on Rae, making sure she heard what he said.

“I don’t touch other girls.  Ever.  I’m not interested in other girls.  Ever.”  He turned to Stacey, “I mean, you of all people, should know how full of shite rumours are.”  Rae could tell that Finn relished the chance to confront Stacey about the lie she told the school about them having sex.  He enjoyed it because it was in front of Rae, and he wanted her to know that he had told her the truth.  That he would never lie to her. 

“Some are some aren’t.”  Stacey said with a tight grin.  “Anyway I’ve got better places to be.”  She turned on her heels and marched away. 

“Gosh what a pity.”  Rae murmured, “I’ll so miss her company.”

“What’d she say this time?”  Finn asked as he started looking through the homework notes.

“Same old shite.”  She thought about all the things Stacey had said, “She told me you’d get bored of me.”

“Well that’s a load o’ bollocks.”  Finn sorted through his bag and found his notebook and some pens. 

“Is it?”  Rae said in a small voice, trying to shine a light on her fear as Kester had suggested.  Finn stopped what he was doing and looked at her.

“I already told you Miss Earl that I got about 50 years o’ experimenting to do with you afore I run out o’ ideas o’ things I wanna do to you.”  He grinned smuttily, “by the time you gotta start worrying I’ll have forgotten the stuff we already done and break me fucking hip trying to fuck you hard like the dirty, dirty wench y’are.”  She opened her mouth in surprise at his words.

“Aye, I like it when you open your mouth like that.  Pity me pants aren’t around me ankles.”  He smiled, biting his tongue between his front teeth, pleased with himself and raised his eyebrows suggestively.  His bottom lip found its way between his teeth as his eyes went down to her lips.

“Did I see you buy some red lipstick?”  He asked, almost groaning.

“You might have.”  She said, trying to hide how pleased and turned on she was.

“I’d like to see that smudged all over me cock.” 

“I think you’re the dirty wench Finn.”

“I don’t care what I am as long as I get to fuck you.”  She laughed, shaking her head, intensely happy with the things he said to her.  She turned back to the essay questions and his hand stroked her back gently as he turned his eyes back to them as well.  She felt him trace out some words.

_You’re perfect_

And she had to smile at the way he looked out the corner of his eye at her.  He noticed her hand raise to the diamond at her throat, she played with it a lot and it never failed to put butterflies in his stomach.  He focussed again on his work, trying to figure out which essay he wanted to tackle. 

“She’s still got a thing for you Finn.”  Rae said as she picked up her pen and jotted down the essay question she decided upon.

“I know.”  He said with no hint of pride or arrogance.  Rae watched him for a moment as he read the essay questions again.  He turned his eyes to her, “I’m thinking of doing the historical context in which 1984 were written question.  Archer’s right up on his history, and it were written during world war 2 right?”

“It doesn’t bother you that she still likes you?”

“It bothers me… cos o’ the way she acts.  And that I can see that it worries you.  But I can’t change the way she feels.”  He shrugged, “all I can do is try to make sure you know that you and me is sound.”  He looked at her, gauging her response, “so d’you know that?  That we’re sound.  We’re solid.  Stacey means nought to me.”

“I know.”  She was rewarded by a brilliant smile and an intensely deep kiss.  He stroked her face, staring at her with such a look of happiness that Rae was sure he’d say it.  That look of love in his eyes was more intense than ever, it seemed to be constantly growing. 

“What’s happening in your head girl?”  He asked and Rae became aware that she must be giving him the exact same look.  She realised that it was possible that he was waiting for her to say it first. 

She suddenly laughed at the ridiculousness of that and kissed him, even as he gave her a confused look.

“You make me so happy.”  She ginned and turned back to the homework.  “I think the historical context question might be the hardest one.”

“Aye, but I want to add some commentary about its contemporary significance and I think this question is the best one for talking about the way the book transcends the time it were written in.”  Finn grabbed a pen and wrote a few ideas as they came to him.

“You should hear yourself Finn.”  Rae said with a proud smile and he turned to her with a small anxious smile.

“I like the book alright?”  He shrugged shyly. 

“I love that you like this book Finn!”  She exclaimed, “It’s one of my favourites!”  She looked down at his notes, “I meant that you sound like an expert advanced English student already and it’s only been a week.”  Finn gave a tight smile and shook his head.

“Got a long way to go for that!”  He said and focussed on starting the outline for his essay, but Rae could tell he was pleased with what she’d said. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Do You Love Me’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds _

 

_To want.  To need._

_Desire._

_The way her mouth turns up when she smiles.  The way her voice sounds when she tells her little jokes._

_To touch her._

_Smell her.  Taste her._

_To be inside her._

_To fuck._

_To fuck her._

_To fuck her until she cries out._

_Pleasure or pain?_

_Or both?_

_Both._

_The exquisite look on her face._

_A hint of fear._

_Her skin lights up like the moon when the sun falls across her naked form.  Her hair is as dark as the night._

_She plays innocent._

_But I know what’s inside her._

_She is a storm.  She is a hurricane._

_She will rage and smash upon the shore._

_She tried to break me._

_But here I am._

_Look at the way her head rolls back as her body gets fucked._

_I’ve learned just how much she loves to get fucked._

_She loves to cum._

_I love her._

_I love her more than every star in the sky._

_What a surprise that was._

_To love Rae Earl._

_It was not expected.  Not intended._

_But now it consumes me._

_It fills me._

_It’s everything._

_This love is everything._

_I know her._

_I know her better than anyone._

_We belong together._

_Look at her shake.  Look at her._

_She is glorious in orgasm._

_She is a woman._

_A tigress._

_She could tear the heart of a man out._

_Do you love me Rae?_

_Do you?_

_Let me feel you wrap those legs around me._

_Let me do things to you._

_Let me… make you scream._

He came almost silently.  His semen spurting out hard, splatting everywhere.  

He swore to himself and grabbed some tissues to gently wipe the small semen splat off his binoculars.  He put them on the passenger seat of his car and cleaned up his lap, throwing the wadded tissue paper in the back seat before grabbing the binoculars and refocussing them for a better view. 

They were still fucking. 

They fucked a lot.

_Look at her hands on is back._

_Why do you touch him like that Rae?_

_You won’t touch me like that._

He watched as Finn, still erect, withdrew from Rae and kissed his way down her body, diving into licking her pussy with real relish.  He watched the way she arched her back and ran her fingers through his hair.

_Why won’t you let me do that to you Rae?_

_Why do you let him touch you, but not me?_

He watched him finger her, licking hungrily as if her orgasm would give him life. 

He watched her throat working, knew she was about to cum. 

He knew exactly how she looked in orgasm. 

Every minutiae of her being when orgasm ripped through her was committed to memory.  Replayed when he was alone. 

He’d masturbate until his cock hurt, blocking out Finn, imaging himself there, making her move like that. 

He watched Finn thrust back into her before she’d finished shaking from her previous orgasm, a favourite move of his. 

She seemed all sweet and innocent.  Like she’d never do this kind of stuff.  But he knew she swallowed, knew Finn spanked her on occasion, knew she masturbated, knew she was thinking of letting Finn tie her up; he’d seen her checking the strength on her tights to see if they’d be any good for it. 

He’d heard her scream in orgasm; the sweet ecstasy in her voice had been almost too much for him. 

It had been a shock to see his Rae like this.

The girl he thought she was; shy about her body, innocent. 

To see her revelling in sex so thoroughly. 

At times it angered him.

_How dare she let anyone else touch her purity?_

At times he lived for the thought that she was obviously such a whore. 

_Think of all the things you’ll do to her… And that whore will like it._

And always he hated Finn.

_But why him?_

_He shouldn’t touch her._

_She doesn’t belong to him._

_Rae belongs to me!_

_He has her.  He’s allowed to touch her_

_And he’s always around her._

_But that’s alright._

_I’ve got a plan to get rid of him._

_I know how to get to her._

 

 

 

 

_‘Hey Little Girl’ by Icehouse_

 

“Weren’t expecting to see you again!”  Liam was sitting on a bench, sucking on a cigarette.  “Thought you were back in with the Avengers.” 

“Did you tell everyone that I kissed Finn?”  Chloe stood before him, once again feigning confidence, as she had for most of her life. 

“No.”  Liam answered with a cheeky grin.  “That image is not the sorta thing I need to be thinking about.”  He motioned for her to sit down with him.  “Keep me company.”  She stayed standing.

“Did you tell anyone?”  She persisted.  He shrugged and pulled the cigarette from his mouth.

“Might of.”  He blew smoke out in her direction, “don’t remember.”

“Everyone at school is talking about it.”

“I heard!”  He said impressed.  “Everything from; he dates Rae cos she lets him fuck her hot friends, to you’re always in a threesome to Rae’s in denial.”  He winked at her.  “Which is it pet?”

“You did it deliberately didn’t you?”

“No.”  He answered seriously.  “Look Chloe,” he looked away, “if I did say anything, it were an accident.”  He motioned for her to sit down again, “why would I do anything to hurt you?”  He grinned at her, “I like you, little girl.”

“You would have told people to hurt Rae.  It’s got nothing to do with me.”  She stood her ground. 

“Except that everyone’s calling you a slut again.  Saying even your best mate can’t trust you.”

“That don’t matter.”

“No but it does.”  He said slowly.  “It does.”  He looked at her strangely, “sit down Chloe.”

“I told Finn everything you did to Rae.”  She said angrily, “He’ll smash you when he sees you.”

“He can try.”  Liam grinned, “Sit down.”  He tried again

“Are you Rae’s stalker?”  She asked defiantly.

“She got herself a stalker?”  He chuckled.  “Well doesn’t Rae just have a glut of gentlemen callers?”  He smiled strangely and Chloe felt her skin crawl.

“You’re disgusting.”

“Oh don’t talk dirty to me!  You’ll turn me on.”  He grinned and she shook her head at him.  “Oh come on Chlo, you know I mean no harm.” 

“No, but I don’t know that Liam.”  She shook her head.  “I want to believe that you’re a good guy on account of what you did with them knob heads… that were real decent.  But…”

“What do your instincts tell you?”  He asked, seemingly earnest.

“I don’t know.”  She looked away, “can’t trust me instincts.  I’m crap at things like that.”

“According to you, you’re crap at most things.”  Chloe looked at him with wary eyes, “is there anything y’are good at little girl?”

“Men.”  She lowered her eyes.

“So why are you stopping yourself from doing that?”

“Cos men are arseholes.”  Her response made Liam break out into a big grin.

“Too right.”  He offered her a cigarette and she took it, tentatively sitting down beside him.

“Are you Rae’s stalker?”

“Don’t be daft!”  Liam scoffed. 

“You sounded kinda crazed before.”  Chloe sucked on the cigarette slowly.

“Ah I always sound that way.”  He watched her from the corner of his eye, “I liked your mate.  I liked Rae a lot.  More than I let on.”  He smiled sadly, “so yeah, I were upset that she dumped me.”  He shrugged, “but I’ve moved on little girl.”  He said and turned to her, watching her smoke, her eyes wandering over the grass of the hospital grounds. 

“Oh yeah to who?” 

“Didn’t say it were to a person.”  He smiled cryptically.  “I’m in a different state o’ mind.”  He shrugged, “I’m a different person; I do different things now.”

“Like what?”  She asked sceptically.

“I like to quietly sit, drinking tea and people watch.”  He said with a strange smile.

“Oh right.”  She obviously didn’t believe him.

“Ok maybe I don’t drink the tea.”  He said with a devious smile.

“I always saw you as a gin kind of a guy.”  Chloe smiled.

“Gin?”

“Rum?”  She guessed.

“I do like rum.”  He turned to her, “How are the Scooby gang working out for you?”

“Good.”  Chloe said lowering her eyes.

“Try to look like you mean it.”  Liam scoffed.

“I do.  Rae’s good.”  Chloe nodded, “you know, you’d hardly believe that I snogged her boyfriend, she so good to me.  And Archie were always good.  Izzy…” Chloe looked away, “I don’t wanna talk about Izzy and Chop.”  She took a deep breath, “and Finn acts like I don’t exist about 99% o’ the time.  And occasionally breaks the silence to say hello.”  She shook her head, “I don’t blame him.  He just protecting Rae.”

“But it makes you feel shite?”  Liam proffered.  Chloe nodded.  “Why do you need anything from that wanker anyway?  Don’t worry about him.”  Liam laughed, “Leave him to worship at the altar of Rae’s cunt.” 

“You’re disgusting.  I don’t even know why I’m talking to you.”

“Don’t be like that little girl!”  He laughed.  She shook her head and drew on the cigarette.  “You know I’m right about that knob.”

“Why do you hate him so much?  You don’t even know him.”  Chloe narrowed her eyes at him.

“He took what was mine.”  Liam shrugged.  “Guys are like that.”  He explained. 

“I thought you were over Rae.”  Liam smiled enigmatically at Chloe and looked away as he lit another cigarette. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be over Finn?”  He asked astutely.  She nodded her head slowly, looking at the ground.

“I am.”  She said the words, but they hardly sounded like they’d come out of her mouth. 

“You’re a bad liar.”  Liam sucked on his cigarette.

“You too.”  She looked up at him and he smiled sympathetically at her.

“I vote that we get blind drunk and forget all our worries little girl.”

“I don’t think so.”  Chloe shook her head.

“Oh why not?”  Liam sounded almost offended.

“I can’t trust men.”  She shook her head, “so…” She shrugged.

“Oh Chlo.”  He said softly, “you can trust me little girl.”

 

 

***

 

 

_I know I’m s’posed to stay in the hospital when Finn’s in therapy, I sorta promised him I would…_

_But it’s actually a nice day today, so a quick little walk outside won’t hurt nobody!_

_And he’ll never know._

_Besides, I haven’t had anything from that stalker knobhead since the bird._

_Poor bird._

_Archie said that cutting the heart out instead of giving me the card with the heart on it was kind of poetic._

_Poetic?_

_What the fuck Archer?_

_It’s nice to be out here._

_Helps clear me head._

_I keep thinking of Izzy squeezing me hand while they put that fucking needle in her spine._

_That’s an image I need to not have anymore._

_I’ve spent a sizeable amount of every day since I found out she were sick thinking about it._

_Why Izzy?_

_Am I a shit friend for not going to the library and looking up bone biopsies?_

_WHY IZZY?_

_Why?_

_Why couldn’t it have been Ian and Ben and all them guys?  Death by cancer of the dick._

_‘Cancer of the dick; only affects rapists.’_

_Now this is a cancer I could get behind._

_Oh Izzy._

Rae sniffed and felt the cold Breeze hit her face like a slap. 

When the breeze was still, the sun was warm and the day was bright.  She decided to go sit on the benches for a little while before heading back in. 

She came around the corner of the building, her eyes down, hands in her jacket pockets and headed across the grass to the seats. 

She raised her eyes and saw Liam’s back.  He was sitting on the bench facing away across the grass.  She stopped in her tracks, a knot in her stomach and started to back away, until it finally registered that he was not alone. 

“Chloe?”  She barely made a noise as she said her name.  She ran forward, furious at Liam for going near Chloe.  Chloe was vulnerable.  She needed protecting, not exploiting. 

She pushed Liam hard, in the centre of the back and he fell forward off the bench.  Chloe turned around in shock.

“Rae?”  She breathed, confusion on her face.

“You stay away from me best mate!”  Rae yelled at Liam, striding around the table to get in between Chloe and him.  Liam rounded on her, anger in his eyes.

“Or what?”  Rae clenched her fist and punched him as hard as she could in the jaw.  As soon as her fist hit him she felt pain.  He staggered back and Rae grabbed Chloe and pulled her to her feet.

“Come on.”  She ordered Chloe, shaking her hand in pain. 

“Rae what are you doing?”  Chloe asked as she stumbled to her feet.

“What’s your fucking problem?”  Liam came at her but Rae pushed him back.

“Don’t come near her!”  Rae spat vehemently.  She went to push Liam again but he grabbed her wrists.

“Don’t push me around Rae.”  Rae tried to pull her wrists from his hands but he squeezed tighter. 

“Let go of me!”  Rae kicked his shin hard and managed to pull one of her wrists loose as he grunted in pain. 

He pulled her to him with her other, her body slamming against his.

“Do that again and you’ll regret it.”  He said through gritted teeth to her before letting her go with a push.

Rae stumbled back and instantly reached out for Chloe.

“Come on.”  She said again and Chloe went to her.  Rae hugged her protectively.  “I won’t let you drag her down with you.”  Rae told him.

“You can’t stop Chlo and me from being mates.”  He said smugly.

“You’re not mates.”  Rae retorted.  “You’re just another knife pressed against skin.”  Rae shook her head, “and I won’t let her do it to herself.” 

Rae turned and walked away with Chloe as fast as she could, shaking, afraid he’d follow.  But she heard him chuckling, felt Chloe look over her shoulder at him.

“What are you even doing here Chloe?”  Rae asked, trying to get Chloe to look at her instead of Liam.

“He just got bumped up from part-time to full-time admission.”  Chloe said, “So I thought I should visit, like I said I would.”

“He got admitted?” 

_Explains why I haven’t seen him around much._

“It was just weekends at first.  But he tried again so…”

“Tried what?”

“To kill himself.”  Rae stopped walking and turned to look at Chloe.  Seeing the honesty in her eyes she turned to look at Liam, still standing back at the seats.  He saluted and laughed loudly. 

“Why didn’t they properly admit him the first time?”

“I think there weren’t enough room.”  Chloe said, “He kinda needs a room to himself.”  Rae turned away and pulled Chloe to her as she started to walk again. 

“I don’t care.”  Rae said resolutely, “I don’t care.  He’s bad news Chloe.”  She tried to convince herself.

“He needs a friend.”

“Well he’ll have to find someone else.”  Rae said dispassionately. 

“You didn’t give up on me.”  Chloe said softly.

“You’re different Chlo.  Trust me.”  She looked at Chloe earnestly, “promise me you’ll try to stay away from him?”

“Ok Rae.”  She tutted and grinned, trying to break the tension and Rae grinned too.  “Can’t believe you thumped him.”  Chloe shook her head in surprise.  Rae tentatively bent the fingers in her hand.

“I can!”

“It hurt?”  Chloe asked looking at her hand and Rae nodded.  They both started laughing.

“I don’t know how boys do it!”  Rae laughed.

“More practice.”  Chloe shrugged.

“We need to get back to the boxing joint!”  Rae laughed.

“There were so many good looking guys there Rae!”  Chloe gushed, “I almost feel like giving up on my ‘no boys’ policy!” she giggled. 

“Well if we can find a good one for you down there, then maybe it won’t be such a bad thing to lose that policy?”  Rae asked tentatively.

“Not yet.”  Chloe sighed.  “Not yet.”

 

 

When Finn came out of therapy he panicked, Rae wasn’t sitting where she was supposed to be, he walked up the hallway, his heart beating, his mind racing, how was he gonna find her?  But she was just at the drink machine, laughing with Chloe, waiting for her to make a choice, obviously on her way back to where she’d agreed to stay.  He smiled, taking a deep breath and slowly walked up to them.  He kissed her on the cheek and she beamed at him.  Chloe averted her eyes and Finn knew he had to make more of an effort with her.  She was Rae’s best mate. 

“Alright Chlo?”  He asked and she turned her eyes to him.

“Yeah fine.”  She answered softly.

“Good.”  He nodded.  “Where we off to?” 

“Walking Chloe home.”  Rae said and Finn nodded.

“Of course!”  He tried to sound happier about that than he was.  He kept his mouth shut, took Rae’s hand and let the girls lead the way.

 

 

 

 

_‘It Can’t Rain all the Time’ by Jane Siberry_

 

“Isabella has acute lymphocytic leukaemia.”  The doctor looked through her notes and Chop screwed up his face. 

“I thought leukaemia killed kids.”  Chop asked.  Victoria turned her eyes to him and Bradley sighed heavily.  Izzy had insisted that Chop come to every appointment now.  Victoria didn’t mind; whatever her daughter wanted, she got.  But Bradley, Izzy’s dad, did not like Chop; he thought his daughter could do better, and he barely tolerated Chop at the best of times.  Having him involved in what he thought was an intimate family matter grinded on him.

“Normally.”  The doctor said with an awkward nod.  “But there are many adult sufferers as well.”  She smiled reassuringly, “in fact Izzy has one of the more common types of leukaemia found in young adults…”

“Well that’s bad innit?”  Chop said concerned, “she have to vie for treatment with a whole bunch o’ twats.  Can you make sure me girl gets the treatment first?”  Chop asked sincerely. 

“It doesn’t work like that.”  Bradley said, deeply unimpressed, “Everyone gets equal access to treatment Arnold.”

“Well I don’t care about everyone, I care about Izzy, don’t I?”  Chop retorted.

“It’s good news,” Doctor Sharma interjected, “that Isabella has a more common form of cancer.  It means we have more practice curing it Arnold.”  She said kindly.  “It means we’re more likely to succeed, have a positive outcome.” 

“Oh right.”

“It doesn’t appear to have spread to the spinal cord or brain.  But we will need to test that again in a little while; given Izzy’s age it is probable that we will find some in the central nervous system.”  She was all business now; sympathising but factual.

“We will need to treat the cancer quite aggressively, so we’ll start on intravenous injections of Daunorubicin and Cytarabine on Monday.  Make an appointment with the receptionist on your way out.”  Dr Sharma closed her folder, “There will be side effects.”

“I’ll lose me hair?”  Izzy asked, already knowing the answer.

“Quite probably.  Even your eyelashes will probably fall out.”  Dr Sharma nodded.  “But more importantly, there is an increased risk of infertility associated with chemotherapy.”  Izzy turned her eyes to Chop, who looked pained, but reached out his hand to her and she took it, her innards churning. 

“How much of a risk?”

“With the drugs I’ll be starting you on, it’s relatively low.  But it is still an important consideration.”

“Is there anything we can do?”  Izzy asked, her voice wavering. 

“I can make an appointment with a fertility expert for you this afternoon, so that you can see them before you start treatment?  We will probably have to delay your treatment to do fertility preservation.”  Dr Sharma told her, “but if that’s what you’d like to do.”

“Yes.”  Izzy answered.

She made a note in Izzy’s folder and then looked up, “He will probably suggest freezing some eggs.”  Izzy nodded and Dr Sharma picked up her phone and told the receptionist to call Dr Williams and make an emergency appointment. 

“Now I need you all to understand, that we are in for a very long battle, it will likely be years before we can say that Isabella is in the clear.”  Izzy started to cry and Chop got up and knelt before her.

“It’s alright, we’ll get through it.’  He murmured to her as her parents came over to comfort her. 

“What about school?”  She asked softly, “and university.”  She looked at Chop, “I wanted to be a fashion designer.”

“And you still will be.” 

“Arrangements can be made with your school.”  Dr Sharma said.  “You’ll be in hospital for much of the first course of treatments.  But for the subsequent courses, some patients are able to continue with a light, even medium work load; it really depends on your body’s reaction to the treatment.  But your boyfriend there is right; there’s no reason you can’t still do the things you want with your life.”

“So the prognosis is good?”  Bradley asked tensely.

“We’ll need cytogenetic testing for a clearer indication.”  Dr Sharma answered with a smile.  “But leukaemia has an decent survival rate overall.” 

“What are the other side effects?”  Victoria asked.  Chop stayed, kneeling in front of Izzy, gently stroking her back and wishing he could do something. 

“It’s a long list.”  Dr Sharma pulled out several booklets and handed them to Izzy.  “But it’s unlikely you’ll get all of them,” she said soothingly, “your risk of infection will increase, and you’ll bruise and bleed easier.”  Chop looked at Izzy, his face filled with concern, he felt tears in the back of his throat, but he held his emotions in check, for her.  “You’ll get pink or red urine after your treatments.  You’ll probably get nausea, but I’ll prescribe an anti-emetic drug for that.”  She wrote out a prescription as she continued, “loss of appetite, tiredness, you might get ulcers and soreness in your mouth.”  Izzy took a deep breath, feeling panic welling up from deep inside of her; she knew she couldn’t get through all of this, “diarrhoea is common, your skin will be more sensitive to sunlight, your kidneys and liver might struggle a bit.  Your periods may stop.”  She put on a sympathetic face, but still there was more, “there’s an increased risk of thrombosis.”

“What’s that?”  Chop said, his mouth feeling as if it were stuffed with cotton wool.  Victoria looked horrified at the list, and Bradley put a hand up to his face, holding in the emotions that threatened to pour out of him. 

“Blood clots.  They can be dangerous.  But we’ll be on the lookout for them, so it should be ok.”  Dr Sharma answered, “You might get gout, I’ll need to drink at least 2 litres of water a day.”  Izzy nodded despondently and took another steadying breath, “and you’ll need to use condoms.  Not just because getting pregnant during chemotherapy is a very bad idea, but because you may have chemotherapy drugs in your vaginal fluid, and then you’ll pass them on to Arnold and he’ll get sick.”  Bradley cleared his throat and Victoria looked away.  Izzy swallowed hard, feeling somehow shamed by this.  Chop put on a brave face and stroked her hair but her hand shot up and stopped him.

“It’s gonna fall out.”  She said in a small voice.  Chop let his hand drop and looked down, not knowing what to do. 

“We’ll do your first course of treatment over 8 weeks I think.  Let’s hit it hard and fast.  Show it who’s boss.”  She smiled reassuringly and looked down at the booklets in Izzy’s hand.

“There’s a lot of information in those booklets.  Have a read of them, and call me,” She handed Izzy her card, “if you have any questions at all.”  Izzy nodded and Dr Sharma gave her another reassuring smile, “I will see you on Monday.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘This Magic Moment’ by Lou Reed _

 

She sat down on Chop’s lounge.  Thinking that only last week she was laughing at Rae and Finn shagging on it.  She ran her hands over the arms of the lounge.  A smooth, cream coloured, plush piece of perfection.  It didn’t seem like the kind of thing Chop would choose, until you met his girlfriend. 

Chop walked in slowly, carrying two cups of tea in one hand, his fingers looping through the handles of both mugs, and a big plate of pies and chips, covered with tomato sauce in the other.  He put them on the coffee table and sat down beside her.  They ate and drank in silence for a while.  Izzy taking the lid off a pie and dunking chips in the meat, but still not eating as much as Chop would like. 

“I want you to tell the gang to treat me like normal.”  Izzy said suddenly and Chop nodded, indicating that he’d do whatever she said.  “And I want you to act like everything’s normal.”  She looked him in the eye, “I don’t want it to be all miserable whenever I’m around.  I wanna laugh and have fun.”  She looked down, “especially since I’m gonna be so sick and…”  She trailed off and looked away. 

“Got it.”  Chop said, “Gang will be on notice.”  He tried to smile but it felt wrong on his lips. 

“And…” She turned away, but Chop moved closer, putting his hand on her back and knee.  “I’m sorry about the fertility thing…” A tear dropped from her face onto her hand and she sniffed hard, “I know how much you wanna have children.  So if you don’t wanna be with-” She started to cry and she covered her face with her hands like a small child would.  Chop watched her, bewildered. 

“Izzy?”  He asked, wanting her to tell him what to do.  But he realised it was up to him to just do what felt right.  He slipped off the couch and knelt before her, gently taking her hands from her face. 

“I went and bought something real important this morning.”  He said.  She smiled at him and gently touched his cheek.

“What did you get?”

“I got you a sewing mannequin.”

“Chop?”  She asked amazed.  She started to grin as she imagined the way he must have looked, going into the store.

“Lady at the store said it were the best one.  Looks like it can do stuff in your size and Rae’s.  I know how you’re enjoying making that dress for Rae.”  He nodded happily, hoping for her approval, and Izzy leaned down and kissed him.

“Thank you.”  She smiled sadly, “You didn’t have to.”

“Nah but I wanted to.”  He grinned and she took a deep steadying breath. 

“You don’t have to stay with me Arnold.”  She said softly, her hand on his face.

“Yeah but I want to.”

“But all the years I’ve known you, you wanted a big family.”

“That is true.”  Chop answered.

“So I understand if-”

“You’re worth more to me than kids Isabella Reid.”  She looked into his eyes and felt calm.  Like she could get through anything.  She felt strong.  She felt brave. 

“I love you Chop.”  He nodded in response.

“I got this other thing too.”  He looked down as he spoke and Izzy could see his hands shaking, “I actually got this one a few weeks ago, but now seems like a real good time to give it to you.”  He fumbled with something in his pocket, “I been carrying it around lately, waiting for the right time,” he explained nervously, and drew out a small box.  “Izzy girl.  I love you more than I love me own life.  And I meant what I said to you afore.  We get through this, and then you be me wife yeah?”  He opened up the box and Izzy’s hands shot to her face.  She said nothing, just stared at the ring, tears streaming down her face. 

“I know that sapphires are your favourite.”  He said with a shy smile and took the ring out of the box.  It was a huge single sapphire, surrounded by smaller diamonds embedded in an ornate white gold band.  He took her hand, waiting for any sign from her, but she simply watched as he slowly slid the ring on her finger.

“Marry me Izzy?”  He asked with a crooked grin, trying to hide how terrified he was of her response.  She nodded her head, biting her bottom lip and threw her arms around him, kissing him frantically and nearly knocking him over.  He wrapped his arms tightly around her and carefully laid her down on the floor.  He hesitated, wondering if it was right to have at her when she were sick, but she was already removing his clothes.  And Chop never needed to be asked twice. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘A Girl Like You’ by Edwyn Collins _

 

He paused his stomach clenching as his fingers brushed hers when she passed him her notes.  She sat down across from him, rolling her eyes when her hair got caught in the straps of her bag. 

“Hey.”  He greeted her with a smile.

“Hiya.”

She was a little late.  Probably because lunch preceded this free period, and he knew Finn would slow her down, dawdling, insisting that he know where she is at every moment.  Phillip pursed his lips slightly, trying to not show how annoying that thought was and waited for her to settle down, she made a loud sighing noise as she looked into her bag.

“Alright, these are the rest of me notes.”  She pulled them out of her bag and shoved the end of her pen in her mouth while she put her hair up into a messy ponytail.  He looked down at the notes.

“So you’ve decided on Sebastian as the guy’s name?”  Rae nodded, “why?”  He chuckled.

“I don’t know any Sebastians.”  She shrugged and he mirrored her action with a smile.

“Sound logic.”

“It’s my speciality.”  She grinned, “Which is funny cos we all know how mad I am.”  He beamed at her and chuckled, noticing the way her eyes lit up when she smiled.  “So what’d you name the girl?”  Rae asked reaching for his notes. 

“Rhiannon.”  Rae looked at him with a questioning expression, “it means great queen or goddess.  And that’s what she is to him.”  Phillip explained.

“Oh right.”  She looked down at the papers, “Rhiannon and Sebastian… might have to change his name.”

“We can change mine.”

“No I like yours.  Umm….”  She looked up, thinking. 

“Do you always write half a play without naming the main characters?”  He asked with a smile.

“First play I’ve written.”  She shrugged, “But names are hard!”  He nodded, trying to stop himself from grinning.

“We could go with Peter.”

“I bet you’ve got some sort of amazing reason for that.”  She joked. 

“Well Peter, is the rock that the Christian faith was built on… it seems fitting; Peter and his goddess.”  She gave him a face denoting that she was impressed.

“I like it Philly, me boy.”  She wrote down the name, “O’ course no one will ever know this but us.”

“That’s the torment of being a writer, isn’t it?”  Phillip was blushing slightly at being called ‘Philly me boy’ but he hid it admirably, “we put all this stuff in what we write, but no one will ever know.”  She smiled at him and looked down at the blank page she had set up for writing.

“So where will we begin today?”

“I think we should get the kissing scene done today.”  Phillip suggested in businesslike manner and Rae nodded. 

“If we even have a kiss!”  Rae reminded him.

“It seems ridiculous to have a romance without a kiss.”  Phillip said a little snippily, “I think Elsa could be a bit more… particular about this with the leads actors, you know?”  Rae shrugged.

“I don’t mind… I mean I kinda like the respecting boundaries thing… but I do admit; it would be good to get a bit of a snog in there.” 

“You could just not go for the leads if you won’t do a stage kiss.”  Phillip mumbled.  Rae shook her head at him and decided focussing on writing the scene was best. 

“We gotta have a decent lead in to something like that though… like they should talk or something.”

“I think he could declare his love for her.”  Rae screwed up her face at his suggestion.

“Seems a bit quick, don’t it?  Maybe he can just compliment her something?”

“He could tell her she’s got beautiful eyes.”

“What colour?”  Rae wrote down a note and looked up at him, “he should be specific like; ‘your eyes are like the ocean at sunset…’ or something.”

“Not blue.”  He said slowly, smiling at her words.

“So brown?”

“Not brown.  That’s too pedestrian.”  He took a breath, “your eyes are the colour of rich earth, from which life itself springs with tiny drops of green, like moss filled dew and specks of golden sunshine.  And when you smile the entire universe is born within their depths; life, love, laughter… my whole world can be read in the tiny fibres of your miraculous eyes.”  There was a silence, Rae’s eyes locked on Phil’s.

“Wow.”  She breathed slowly, “Peter’s a bit of a poet.”  She looked down and started to write what Phillip had said and he took a deep breath, and tried to let out some tension when he breathed it out.  “That’s beautiful that is.”  Rae grinned.  “Tell you what Phil, when you start wooing a lass, she gonna be right proper knocked on her arse!”  Rae laughed and he smiled tightly. 

“Probably not.”  He bit the inside of his mouth, similar to how Finn did and Rae noticed it, giving a fond smile as she thought about Finn.  “Anyway.”  He cleared his throat, “how d’you think she’d respond?”

“I dunno… I’m actually useless at romance.”

“Well if someone said that to you…?”

“I wouldn’t believe ‘em!”  She laughed. 

“C’mon Rae.”  Phillip encouraged, and Rae took a moment to think.  What would she say or do if Finn said something like that to her? 

“I’d probably shag him.”  Rae shrugged.  “Right then and there.”

“Huh.”  Phil said softly, his lips slightly parted, his eyes not leaving her face, his heart thumping in his chest.  He swallowed hard and looked down at his notes, “Well we can’t have that on the stage… We’re not Ancient Greek theatre.”  She laughed and he joined in after he’d had a moment to gather himself. 

“So we might have to have a more tame response!”  Rae laughed. 

“No but what you said is honest… so…”

“So maybe we can tame her response like… they had an argument before or… he’s done something to make her angry.”

“So when he says that stuff about how stunningly beautiful every little thing about her is… she’s doesn’t just… shag” he said the word tentatively, savouring the way it felt in his mouth, “him… because she distrusts the situation.”

“Perfect.”  She grinned.  “We should write the argument first, so we can refer to it in the make up slash make out scene.”  Phillip grinned and turned to a fresh page.  “Oh… and Elsa said we needed to add some more side plot stuff.  The minor characters don’t have enough stuff happening.”

“Alright.”  Phil jotted down a note on a different page. 

“So what can they argue about?”  Rae asked writing down a few notes.

“I dunno.”  Phil scratched his head, “What do people in relationships argue about?”  He looked at her intently. 

“I dunno… all sorts o’ things.”  She shook her head.  “Mostly little things.”

“What about jealousy?”  Phillip asked, not meaning to sound as pointed as he did.  Rae raised her eyes to him. 

“You meaning Finn?”  She asked gently and Phillip averted his eyes self-consciously. 

“No.”  He mumbled.

“Truth now?”  She prodded with a small smile.

“Ok yes.”  He nodded in answer, but then shook his head at where the conversation was going. 

“He is a little over-protective… but not without reason.”  She said softly.  Phil lowered his eyes, knowing that the time had come for her to fully rebuff him.  He braced himself for her words and raised his eyes to see her taking a breath, ready to speak.

“I got a stalker.”  She shrugged but then looked a little more serious.  “And you know… he suspects everyone.”  She smiled grimly, “even you, me ol’ pal.” 

Phillip looked out across the school, not knowing what to think or feel.

“A stalker?”  He asked eventually, his face unreadable.  “What makes him a stalker?”

“Well… he sent a lot o’ gifts to me house.”  She looked away, hating to talk about this.

“Don’t that just make him a secret admirer?”

“And some dead animals.”  Rae didn’t look to see his response, she took a deep breath and decided to look on the bright side, “But he hasn’t sent anything for like… a week now.  So I think he might finally be over me.”  Phil hesitated, unsure what to say.  “So Finn probably could settle down a little now.”

“I don’t think you’re the kind of girl that guys get over just like that.”

“You what?”  She asked surprised.

“I think that this is one of the very few things on this planet that Finn and I could actually agree upon: you need to keep safe.”  He said softly, measured.  Rae smiled grimly.

“I’m fine.  I been staying at Finn’s a lot.”

“Oh.”  Phil’s voice was unreadable and Rae found herself looking at him closely, trying to figure out his facial expression.  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”  He said softly.

“Why?”  Rae sat back from the table and tried to read his body language. 

“Because the stalker is probably wondering where you’ve been.  And being at your boyfriend’s house will probably piss him right off.”  Phillip answered with a grim look. 

“Oh.”  Rae looked down, “I hadn’t thought o’ that.”  She looked up at Phil.  “D’you think he’s watching my place?”

“I guarantee he’s watching your place.”  He breathed.  Rae looked away again, sucking her bottom lip in thought.  “You’d be safest in your own home, with the doors locked, of course.”  Phil said firmly.  “You should stay at your place.”

“How d’you figure that, if he’s watching?”  Phillip caught her eye and leaned forward.

“If he knows where you are and what you’re doing, he’ll feel more in control.  Things will be easier for you that way.”  Phillip spoke slowly, “if he doesn’t know where you are, I imagine he’ll be in a very bad mood.  And things will go less well for you.”  Phil blinked slowly, “especially if he knows you’re at Finn’s place all the time.”  He smiled resolutely, “your place is safer.  Watched, but safer, cos he’ll know where you are.  So he won’t escalate further.”  There was an undercurrent in Phillip’s voice that Rae didn’t understand. 

“Well I spend some time at home as well.”  Rae said softly, feeling afraid.  She hadn’t realised that her actions could be driving the stalker’s behaviour. 

“That is definitely best.”  He looked away for a moment, “until they catch him I guess.”  Rae felt a sense of doom shadowing her, rushing towards her.  It was like watching gathering storm clouds on the horizon and knowing it was heading your way, no matter what you did. 

“Anyway.”  She tried to shake that feeling, “I’m sorry about Finn giving you grief.”

“Don’t be.  It’s his actions, not yours.”

“Well from what I’ve seen lately, you’re giving as good as you get nowadays.  Not that you two let me hear what you’re saying.”

“Just a friendly rivalry.”  Phillip answered shortly.

“About what?”  Rae asked intently.

“Just dickhead guys being dickhead guys.”  He said with a grin, “Anyway, I’m not gonna let your twat boyfriend stop me from being around you.  I like you.”  He panicked for a moment then added, “you‘re a good friend.” 

“Finn’s not a twat.”

“Yeah, well, try seeing it from my perspective.”  Phillip answered dismissively. 

“Try seeing it from his.”  Rae answered coolly. 

“You’re right, I’m sorry.”  Phillip took her hand, “don’t be mad at me Rae?” 

“I’m not.  Just don’t call Finn a twat.” 

“Not unless it’s to his face?”  Phillip grinned and Rae rolled her eyes, gently taking her hand from his she picked up her pen. 

“If you say it to his face he’ll thump you.  And I won’t stop him.”  She grinned and he laughed. 

“That’s alright, I can handle him.”  Phillip felt shaky inside; this conversation had been very challenging.

“I dunno.  He is pretty tough.  7 years of boxing.  It’s made his body very… hmmmm.  Just very.”  She grinned and looked back down at the play they were making together with a wistful look on her face.  Phillip bit his tongue, this was his usual tactic when she started talking about Finn. 

“I think Rhiannon and Peter could argue over his ex-girlfriend.  Maybe she can ‘do a Stacey’ with Peter?”  He grinned at the look she gave him.  “It’d be even funnier if Stacey played the part.”  Rae laughed and Phillip felt like he was on more even ground now.

“I had no idea how mean y’are!”  She chuckled and Phillip grinned.

“She looked like a bit of a fool on that stage Rae.”

“I think most people thought Finn were the fool for not wanting to kiss her.”

“I don’t think so.”  Phillip said seriously.  “I wouldn’t want to kiss her either.”  Rae shook her head at him.

“Is that the second thing you two agree on?”

“Sounds like it.”  Phillip’s eyes sparkled as he looked at her laughing at him. 

“You two have got more in common than you think.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Your Ghost’ by Kristin Hersh _

 

Chloe looked down at the tomato sauce bottle. 

“But Izzy’s not here.”  She said softly.

“No but she will be soon.”  Chop eyed them all sternly.  “So I got some rules to set down.”  He stood up and they all watched him silently.  “One.  Only talk about it if she brings it up, and then you use the tomato sauce bottle, like I was tryin’ to say.”  He motioned to it and Chloe nodded, “Two.  Don’t go asking how she is all the time.  Three.  And this comes from Izzy.”  He turned his eyes to each one of the individually, “be happy.”  He nodded slowly, “she got enough on her plate, she needs us to be uplifting like.  To be normal, when everything else is fucked.”  Rae nodded her head slowly and Chop knew she’d make sure the others followed orders, “Act like nothing is different, unless she say otherwise.  Got it?”

“Chop…” Chloe said softly, “I don’t think we can act like nothing has changed.  That makes it seem like we don’t care.”  Chop raised his hands in frustration.

“I don’t care how it seems Chlo, it what she wants.”

“Let’s just try it this way, and Chop’ll let us know if she wants it another way?”  Rae smoothed things over and Finn shifted in his chair to be a little closer to her, writing on her thigh as she and Chloe communicated silently.

_I want you_

He traced on her thigh, and the slight reddening of her cheeks told him she was ‘hearing’ him loud and clear.  He often traced these particular words on her.  Every time the slightest urge to be inside of her came to him, for whatever reason, he’d trace the words on her, no matter the setting.  School, classes, dinner with parents, at a movie with the gang, in the car, alone in his room, alone in her room.  It never failed to make her flush pink.  And right now he wanted to think about the warm comfort of Rae’s soft flesh, rather than the hard realities of this conversation. 

“Izzy’s coming.”  Archie told them softly and looked down at his hands, trying to brace himself.  Everyone took deep breaths and Chloe put the tomato sauce bottle in the middle of the table.  Izzy came in, a huge smile on her face and everyone in the gang smiled back.  Each and every one of them feeling that the smile was fake, but doing it for her.

“Hi.”  She sat down and an awkward silence followed, Chop glaring at Rae to fix it.

“So Chop.  Party at your place again this weekend?”  She asked with a huge fake grin.  But Chloe saw the ring as Izzy scratched her nose gently.

“Oh my god!”  She said suddenly, all eyes turning to her, unsure if she was just going to demand to talk about Izzy’s cancer.  But her mouth was open with joy, the awkwardness was broken.  “Is that…?”   She snatched Izzy’s hand away from her face.  Her eyes fell on the ring, scrutinising it closely before looking up to Chop with surprise.

“Holy shit.’  Rae said as she leaned over the table to look.  Finn watched her face closely, trying to see what she thought about it all. 

“That’s beautiful!”  Chloe said to Chop.

“Hey don’t sound so surprised!”  He laughed. 

“Oh my god!”  Chloe laughed.  “You’re engaged Izzy!”  Archie and Finn’s eyes went to Chop who was blushing happily. 

“Congrats me mate!”  Finn said with a grin and a hug, before he turned his eyes back to Rae as she looked down at the ring, her hand gently playing with the necklace.  Archie was hugging Chop and Izzy now.  Finn joined in and hugged Izzy as Archie did.  The girls didn’t hug, just talked excitedly.  He wondered if she realised what that necklace meant to him and his family, Rae now holding the necklace pendant firmly. 

_When your grandmother gave that to you Finn, she intended for you to give it to your wife_

He heard his father’s words and as she turned to look at him, a big smile on her face, he wondered if he should tell her what it meant to him that she wore it.  She looked back at Izzy, who was beaming as Chloe gushed over the ring. 

“Are you gonna set a date?”  Archie asked, not knowing what to say.  Izzy and Chop both lowered their eyes and Archie realised what a mistake that question had been.

“I imagine it’ll be a long engagement since Izzy’s coming to university with me!”  Rae saved the situation quickly and Finn squeezed her thigh before writing on her leg again.

_You’re so quick._

_So smart._

_So perfect._

He waited for the signs that she’d ‘read’ each message before writing the next one.  It was subtle, but he always knew when she’d understood him, even if she made no obvious sign. 

“That’s right!”  Izzy said.  “I gotta get me degree before I think about becoming a missus!”

“And then you can birth a small rugby team!”  Archie grinned, once again eliciting lowered eyes from Chop and Izzy, who sniffed gently looking away.  No one understood that response, but they all guessed what it meant.  Archie opened his mouth, wishing he could think of what to say to make it better.

“Well that’s all in the future!”  Chloe said as happily as she could and turned her eyes to Rae.

“Can I have a better look at that ring?”  Rae took her cue and Izzy obliged holding her hand out for her.  “Sapphires are pretty.” 

“What are your favourite Rae?”  Izzy asked, her eyes subtly going to Finn.  He saw the look on her face and had to stop himself rolling his eyes, deeply amused, and slightly shy about the whole idea.

“I quite like a good emerald.  If you’re going for colours that is.”  And the girls looked at Chloe for her opinion.

“If you’re going to stray from the classic white diamond, you can’t go past rubies.”  Chloe added.  “But I suppose you prefer black diamonds Rae?”  Chloe nodded to the necklace Rae was playing with.

“That I do.”  She grinned.  “Oh but it is a beautiful sapphire.”  Rae looked at the ring and then at Izzy, “Your favourite.  He chose so well.”  Rae marvelled.

“Again with the surprise!”  Chop admonished and they all laughed. 

“Well there’s nothing for it!  You have to have a big engagement party!”  Rae grinned.

“At the pub!”  Archie said, glad that this sentence did not elicit the negative response his last two had. 

“You should have seen me dad when I told him!”  Izzy laughed, “But mum told him to pipe down.  It were brilliant.”

“So this Saturday for the engagement party?”  Rae continued with her theme. 

“NO!”  Chop said and the three girls turned to him with a shared questioning expression.  He shrugged his response and Chloe dismissed him with a roll of her eyes.

“Not enough time to organise it proper.”  She said

“Exactly.”  Chop said.

“But we can always have a gang celebration and then do a bigger one in a few weeks time!”  Izzy said and a groan escaped from Chop’s throat.

“Can’t.”  He looked at Finn who gave him a warning look, but Chop shook his head, “Finn and Archer are in a match at the college.”  He explained and Rae heard Finn sigh beside her.  “Gotta go to it.”  Chop grinned.  Rae turned her eyes to Finn, curious; he hadn’t told her about it.  Finn looked suitably chastised by the look on her face and Archie took a deep breath: they’d been found out. 

“What match?”  Izzy said.

“It’s just an exhibition match between the firsts and seconds.”  Finn said softly.  “It’ll be dead boring.  And I already checked with Karim, he’s home all day Saturday, he can guard you while I play.”

“Guard me?”

“You know what I mean.”  Finn said with a strange facial expression.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s a bit of a boy’s thing.”  Finn said, “You probably shouldn’t come.”  He was deeply worried that she would very much hate the match.  He had a feeling it would upset her.  But he was so looking forward to it. 

“I wanna go!”  Izzy said with a grin.

“You can come with me.”  Chop grinned and Finn gave him a murderous look.  He turned his eyes back to Rae who was looking a bit hurt. 

“Finn’s right, girls probably shouldn’t go.”  Archie backed Finn, his tongue feeling the hole at the back of his teeth fondly; he’d never get that missing tooth replaced, he was too proud of it. 

“What is it stripper jelly wrestling?”  Chloe asked, “of course girls can go.”  Rae gave Archie a look that indicated she agreed with Chloe.

“In the 14 years this match has happened there’s been maybe 10 girls go in total.”  Finn said, “girls don’t like it.  It’s a boy thing.” He insisted.  The three girls shared a look that none of the boys missed this time.

“Please stay home with Karim.”  Finn said urgently, “I’ll feel safer if you’re at home.”  Rae looked ahead, ignoring him, Izzy and Chloe feeling in a similar mood. 

The conversation, was forced by Archie, Chop backing him up, back to organising an engagement party.  Rae ignoring Finn as he tried to get her attention.  When Archie got up to go the loo and Finn to buy Rae a drink, Rae turned her eyes to Chop.

“You’re taking us to that match.”  He looked at the three sets of eyes glaring at him.  He shrugged.

“But you explain it to your lad.”  Chop said to her, “and no whinging when you hate it and you’re bored!”  He told all three of them.  The girls were satisfied with this response and returned to party planning in earnest.  Every now and then a suggestion of what might happen at the wedding, what kind of dress, who would be bridesmaids, would arise and they would pause, a sad moment of reflection would pass amongst them, before Chloe or Rae would pick up the thread of the conversation. 

It was so hard to look at that ring and not think about the future. 

And not plan or fantasise about a wedding that Izzy wanted to happen in a few years time.

It was so hard to not plan the future.

To not think about the future.

To just not.

To only think about the now, and maybe a few months in advance. 

At most.

She had a symbol of an intended forever on her finger.

And she might only have months left.

 

 

 

 

_‘Killing in the Name of’ by Rage Against The Machine_

 

Chop sat down with an armful of food and a big grin.

“What are you so happy about?”  Izzy asked, looking a little tired but still chipper. 

“I look forward to this match every fucking year.  Since I were a wee boy I been coming to this!”  Chop said as he moved the girls forward to the front seats available, moving on a bunch of kids.  It was a bright and sunny, but cold, Saturday afternoon, and a large crowd of mostly males were gathering around the college’s playing fields.  Rae watched the growing crowd and remembered Finn saying he’d prefer it if she didn’t come, Archie even said it’d be better if the girls didn’t come.  But Chop had agreed to bring them along, so it couldn’t be that bad.  Rae looked around seeing very few girls at all.  Izzy wound her arm into Rae’s and leaned her head on her shoulder.  Rae knew that the boys in the first year physical education class would be having some sort of exhibition match against the second year physical education male students.  She knew it was an annual event.  But that’s all she knew.

“So what’s so good about this match Chop?”

“It’s our annual British Australian Rules Football League match.”

“You what?”  Chloe piped in.

“All you ladies need to know is that it’s always a fucking bloodbath.”  He took a huge handful of chips into his mouth and smiled happily.  He saw the look on the girl’s face and sighed.

“Alright, about 14 years ago the College started running this exhibition match, selling tickets for fundraising or some shite that no one cares about.”  Chop explained, “Apparently, at the time, they had an Australian exchange student who suggested Australian Rules football as good candidate for an exhibition match.”  Chop explained, “turns out not only is that a fucking mental sport, but England’s got our own league of it!”  He took a swig of beer, “and so this beautiful annual slaughter was created.  The college makes thousands of dollars and blokes lose teeth!”  He grinned, “It’s brilliant!” 

“What?”  Rae asked, concerned.

“Our lad Finn got two broken ribs last year!”  He said to her, “and Archie lost a back tooth.”  Rae opened her mouth, afraid and concerned of what this match was going to be like.  Now she understood why Finn didn’t want her here.  She felt a knot in her stomach.

“Jesus!”  Chloe turned her worried eyes to the oval, still empty. 

“It’s brilliant.”  Chop repeated around his food, “the second year lads haze the fuck outta the first years.”  Rae looked around at the audience, there were plenty of guys here who didn’t go to the college, some too young, some too old.  There was an electricity in the air, a palpable excitement.

“There’s a lot of people here.”

“We only get this once a year Rae Rae.”  Chop said seriously. 

“I feel like I’m getting bathed in testosterone and man sweat.”  Rae said unimpressed.

“Wait till the game starts.”  Chop raised his eyebrows and gave her a knowing grin.

 

 

Finn breathed in the smell of the locker room.  The tension, the testosterone.  Archie bounced around beside him.

“I don’t know what it is.  But I fucking love this game!”  He said as if he were on the upward rush of an ecstasy tablet.  Finn clicked his neck and stared at the entrance, waiting for the call to go.  He was always silent and focussed before a match of any kind, but particularly so with this one.  Archie was usually focussed too.  But not with this one, with this one he was frenetic.  And that was ok, he’d be playing forward pocket and would need to be running a fair bit – he’d need that energy.  Finn was one of the taller lads on the team, and he was only 5 foot 11 inches.  He was playing power forward, a role he was built, in personality, if not height, for.  Macca was playing back pocket and was also captaining the team, and they had spent all morning going over strategies.  A second year team that lost to a first year team was to be deeply shamed.  It had only happened once in the 14 years of this annual match.  And that was last year, when Finn, Archie, Macca and the rest of the lads had won a close and hard fought battle as first years, and the second years had never lived it down.  They were expected to absolutely slaughter the first years given last year’s performance.  And since you only got 2 chances to ever play in this event – in your first and second year of this college, no one on Finn’s team had any intention of losing today.  Whatever the cost. 

“Let’s fucking kill ‘em.”  Macca said quietly to his team.  Archie yelled in agreement and everyone except for Finn joined in.  Finn was focussed, eyes on the prize. 

Their PE teacher came and motioned for them to stand in the corridor between the change rooms.  The first year team lined up beside them.  The second years wore all black, their team called the blacks, the first years wore red and black, their team called the reds. 

“I’m surprised you’re still in the second year for PE even!”  Came a voice and Finn turned his eyes to Phil, the slash of his red shirt was almost like a rag to a bull.  Finn grinned at him. 

“I’m so glad to see you Phil.”  He said softly and Archie cocked an eyebrow at him.

“How’d you get the shiner?”  Phil asked, “Rae fight back.”  Finn just grinned at him.  Not taking the bait, letting the rage build inside, waiting for the game to unleash it.  “Must be strange being allowed in your own grade?”  Phil tried again, “Thought you’d have to repeat everything.”  Finn said nothing, just stared at him with that big grin, breathing in the testosterone, the tension, the urge to maim rising in his blood.  Both teams were silent, listening to Phil, Archie surprised that Finn hadn’t responded.

“I suppose there had to be something you were good at.”  Phil said, “Not surprising it’s something physical is it?”  He grinned sadistically. 

“Yeah I’m pretty good at getting physical with the girl you like.”  Finn shot back and got some appreciative sounds from his own team, some hisses from the opposition.  “What are you even doing here Will?”  Finn asked, “I’m surprised they let someone with no balls onto a boy’s team.”  Laughter, jeering, Archie beside him chuckling.  It wasn’t the sort of thing Archie would normally chuckle at, but today was different. 

“This from the guy that wouldn’t kiss Stacey Stringfellow.”  One of the first years piped up, but Macca was on that quick smart.

“He’s got his hands full enough with Rae, you seen the tits on her.”  Macca snapped back.  Finn raised his eyebrows at Phillip, who narrowed his eyes in response. 

“Oh but Finn,” Archie said in a mocking voice, “you can’t recite Shakespearean sonnets to her!  Whatever will you do?”  Archie set Finn up for the takedown. 

“Ah she don’t give a fuck about that when I’m making her scream.”  Finn said cockily his smile creeping into sadistic territory as he watched Phil squirm with anger, the lads responding with hoots and hollers. 

“You think that talking and bragging about Rae like that in public makes you look like a big man?”  Phil said quietly through clenched teeth, barely heard over the vocal jostling that everyone was engaging in now.

“No but impotently fuming over the fact that you can’t do it, does make you look small.  Don’t it?”  Finn said, matching Phil’s volume.  Archie laughed; he’d never heard Finn sledge like this before; he’d upped his game.  Phil stepped out of his team’s line and stood toe to toe with Finn.

“I bet you’re the one stalking her.  Give you an excuse to control her.”  He barely breathed the words, so obviously designed to enrage Finn, because now Finn knew that Rae had trusted Phil enough to tell him about the stalker.  The grin Phil gave Finn told him that was his exact thought.  Finn glared at Phil, understanding that Phil was closer to Rae than he’d thought. 

“Fuck you Phillip, you play tennis.”  Archie said with disgust, understanding that Phil was trying to manipulate Finn into making a mistake.  “You don’t belong here.  Only real men who play real sport belong here.”

The PE teacher, filling in for umpire, motioned for them to move out and Archie pushed Finn to move forward, but he turned to Phil with a genuinely happy smile.

“I’m gonna fucking kill you out there boy.”  Finn laughed and headed out to the playing field. 

 

 

36 extremely fit boys, wearing tight muscle shirts and, short well fitted shorts jogged out onto the field to the cheers of the audience.

Rae felt her spirits lifting as the audience cheered. 

“Oh my god.”  Chloe breathed as she looked at the boys.

“Bloody hell.”  Izzy agreed, Chop was too busy cheering to notice her open mouthed stare at the guys as they started to jog out to their positions.

“Fucking hell, you could almost tell if they’re circumcised.”  Rae whispered, Chloe and Izzy breaking out into fits of giggles. 

“Archie’s playing forward pocket I think.”  Chop said looking at where Archie was standing, “and I know Finn’s playing power forward.  It’s his thing.”  Chop turned to them to explain.  “In Australia he’d be laughed off the field, cos most power forwards are like 6 foot 7 inches.”  He grinned.  “Most players in AFL in Australia are well over 6 foot.”  Chop shovelled food in his mouth and turned back to the field. 

“I have got to get to Australia.”  Chloe almost drooled, eliciting more giggles from Rae and Izzy. 

“How do you know all this?”  Izzy asked.

“I love this fucking sport.”  Chop said without looking away, “almost as much as I love football.” 

Rae’s eyes found Finn easily, he looked particularly fetching in his team’s kit. 

“I’m dating a sex god.”  She whispered and Izzy couldn’t help but laugh, Chloe tried not to, but couldn’t help it as the three girls looked at Finn stretching his quads. 

“Is that Mike?”  Chloe asked and Rae nodded, “I had no idea he were so fit.” 

“Look at Nick.”  Izzy breathed and the girls sought him out with small whimpers of delight when they saw him.

“I have to get to Australia.”  Chloe repeated. 

“God Archer looks good.”  Rae muttered and the girls nodded their heads in unison.  Chop didn’t hear a word, he was too busy screaming already.  Everyone around them was starting to scream out things at the field. 

Some of the players milled around the centre of the field, the umpire had a rugby type ball in his hands and he spoke to them, the two captains shook hands.  The electricity in the air was buzzing in the girl’s hearts as the umpire bounced the ball in the centre of the field making it fly high up into the air.  And the boys leapt up.  Finn managing to leap up on top of the body of an opposing team member to grab the ball.  Rae expected him to get sent off for such contact – knees in the back…

“Oh!”  The girls groaned in admiration as Finn landed, turned and kicked the ball forward to Archie.  No sooner was the ball out of his hands than Phil had shoved him.  Rae’s mouth opened, ready to protest, but she saw Finn shove him back equally as hard.  She noticed several other small skirmishes like this as they all vied with each other to keep their eyes on the ball and lose the defender assigned to them from the other team. 

It was a brutally physical sport. 

Archie forwarded the ball but was slammed into the ground by a defender.

“OH!”  The girls said, horrified.

“GET THE FUCK UP!”  Chop screamed at Archie.  Another boy was moving the ball up the field towards the goal posts.

“KICK IT YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” a man screamed out behind them.  Izzy jumped, surprised at the vehemence in his voice.  But he was tackled, and the ball was now in the hands of the reds and Chop was on his feet, screaming at the blacks to pull their thumbs out.  From out of nowhere Macca tackled the running red forward, hard, flattening him into the ground, the ball falling from his hands, a black defender scrambling to get it.  Macca got up, his hand on the head of the downed red player, pushing it into the ground as he stood up.  But the red player was up in no time and Macca was back to shadowing him. 

“I have no idea what’s happening.”  Izzy whispered, still opened mouthed and wide eyed. 

“I don’t care what’s happening.  As long as it doesn’t stop.”  Chloe responded. 

Rae almost whimpered as she saw Finn running forward his eyes on the ball that his team mate had just kicked.  Several lads were going for it, Phil roughly pulling on Finn’s shirt.  Finn elbowed him hard in the jaw and used his bent over form to once again climb up above the heads of the others and pluck the ball out of the air, falling hard on his side, the ball in his arms.  3 other players fell with him and they ended up in a tangled heap of what looked like pain and strange homoeroticism.

“GOOD MARK!”  Chop cheered.  He turned to the girls, Rae with a look of horror on her face, worried about the fall Finn had just endured, “When they catch it, it’s called a mark.”  He explained and turned back to the game.  Phillip was straightening up, spitting blood.  Finn was already up, focussing on the goalposts, the ball in his hands. 

“He’s gonna go for a goal!”  Chop cried deliriously happy. 

“He’s too far out.”  A man behind them groaned, “He’ll never get it.”

Rae felt herself getting far too turned on as Finn focussed, his eyes on the goalposts, his body tense and ready.  He ran up slightly and kicked the ball hard.  It soared over the heads of the defenders trying to stop him and sailed between the posts, the goal umpire signalling a goal had been scored.  The audience erupted.  Those going for the blacks cheered and jumped up and down, while those going for the reds (by far the minority) screamed foul.  The black team ran to Finn, embracing him, tapping him on the arse and cheering happily. 

“Holy fuck.”  Chloe said, “I would quite happily be in the middle of that.”

“Uh huh.”  Rae agreed, beside her Izzy was nodding, dumbfounded. 

As the game continued and the black team finished celebrating and dispersed Finn turned and rammed hard into Phillip, knocking him back.  Phillip pushed back hard and Finn pushed back even harder.  The captain of the red team came running over, smashing into Finn and Archie was there, by Finn’s side pushing back.  The umpire sauntered over as the four lads pushed and pulled at each other’s shirt, Phil’s getting torn, more players rushing over to get involved.

“FUCKING SMASH ‘EM!”  Chop was delirious with joy at the fight breaking out.  A few words from the umpire, both the reds captain and Archie yelling back at him and it was all calmed down and the ball was kicked from near the goalposts back into play. 

The girls watched; the occasional “OH!” escaping their mouths as young men slammed into each other, scrambling for the ball as if their lives depended on it.  Every time the ball was kicked they’d all jump up, slamming into each other in their frantic quest to get the ball, and they‘d almost always end up in a heap on the ground, limbs entwined, bodies pressed together. 

There was one moment when Finn was tackled hard by Phil who ended up on top of him trying to get the ball, several other boys got involved, all of them sweaty, frantic, determined to get the ball and Rae was struck with the idea that being the kind of girl that had sex with the whole football team would not be a bad thing.  She turned to look at Chloe and Izzy and saw the exact same look on their faces.  The scrambling for the ball continued, Phil still on top of Finn and Rae groaned a little; it was just so sexual, all those fit lads clinging to each other, rolling around together, wearing such tiny little shorts…  And then Finn clocked Phil in the jaw and another fight broke out.  The umpire broke it up and bounced the ball up in the air again to start play again, this time it was Archie flying through the air, jumping up onto the spines of his opponents to grab the ball.  He landed well and sprinted up the field, bouncing the ball as he went.  He passed to another player who kicked it forward to Finn before being brutally tackled.  Archie ran hard to get ahead of the ball and Finn passed it to him who took aim and scored another goal.  Archie and Finn ran for each other joyously, and Chop screamed as the girls groaned in appreciation of all the boy hugging again. 

“I can’t believe how sexy this is.”  Chloe said, “Fuck the no boys policy!”  She laughed.  Izzy nodded, apparently in sexual-overdrive-shock because she couldn’t squeeze a word out.  “You’re so lucky to have a lad playing out there.”  Chloe turned her eyes to Rae and Izzy nodded her head again and also turned her eyes to Rae, who grinned.

“I am gonna do very dirty things to him tonight.”  Rae agreed and the girls giggled, catching Chop’s interest.

“Are you even watching?”  He asked angrily, “The reds number 12 player just fucking scored!”  He yelled grumpily and turned back to the field screaming foul.  Rae looked out at the red team surrounding Phil, their number 12 player.  He looked stunned that he managed to get one in; he was playing back pocket, a defender. 

“Sorry Chop.”  Izzy said dutifully before turning back to the girls with a big grin.  “That Phillip’s right into you Rae, and he’s bloody hot!”  Izzy said excitedly, but Rae shook her head.

“No he’s not Izzy!”  But she still felt pleased as she looked back at Finn and Phillip sledging each other as the reds celebrated all around them. 

“He so is.”  Chloe said.

“Into Rae or hot?”  Izzy asked.

“Both right now.”  Chloe grinned, “In performing arts he’s into Rae and some Shakespeare geek… but out here… oomph!”  Izzy and Chloe giggled but Rae shook her head and turned back to the game to see Finn breaking up the celebration with another barge on Phillip who elbowed Finn hard in return.

“OH!”  Rae said as she saw Finn stumble, put his hand to his mouth and look back up at Phillip with a grin.

“That fucker’s in trouble now!”  Chop chortled, still on his feet.  But the umpire had seen the elbow and the ball was given to Finn for a free kick.  Rae saw Finn and Phillip exchange words, players from both teams getting involved.

“You can do anything as long as the ump don’t see you.”  Chop explained, “If he does, it’s a free kick.”  The girls shook their heads.

“This is a mental sport.”  Izzy breathed. 

“We’re about 15 minutes in.”  Chloe marvelled, “Chop, how long are these games?”

“80 minutes if there’s no added time.  But usually they go for about 2 hours.”

“How are they gonna last 2 hours?”  Izzy asked, “Like a third of them are already bleeding.”  Rae saw Finn spit some blood before he focussed and kicked the ball forward, the game starting up again. 

“It’s brutal.”  Chop grinned, “OH!”  He said as a particularly heavy collision between Archie and a reds player crunched right in front of them.  Archie kept his feet but the reds player went down and didn’t move.  Archie looked unaffected by this and simply aimed the ball towards the goals.  He scored and the blacks team ran over to celebrate, a person from the bench came to help the poor reds player up and off the field. 

“First causality!”  Chop said with a blood-lusty glee. 

 

 

Finn felt like his lungs were on fire; and knew he should probably quit smoking.  It was the final quarter of the game.  Everyone was exhausted and bloodied.  And he’d barged, hit, kneed and kicked Phillip so many times he’d worked out most of his aggression at the guy nicely.  But he still loathed him with a fiery venom; he just kept going, no matter what Finn dished out.

But there was no way he was stopping.  Phillip could run better than he could.  Finn was frustrated by this; he’d always been a good fast runner.  He knew he had to quit smoking. 

Phil might run better, but he wasn’t tough.  Finn knew that.  And he wasn’t stronger either.  He’d already been able to barge that fucker to the ground several times.  And Phil couldn’t do it back.  But that bastard could run. 

Finn watched Macca diving onto the leg of a reds player who was about to kick the ball.  He copped a massive kick in the gut for his efforts.  But he stopped a possible goal.  Finn swooped in and grabbed the ball.  He sprinted up the field, bouncing the ball every few strides, as the rules required. 

Finn felt the love of this game burning into his sinew as he savagely shoulder barged a reds player who got too close to him and when he got close enough he kicked the ball hard for a goal.  But he didn’t get to see if it went in, he was tackled from behind almost as soon as he’d kicked it.

He landed with a painful thud, face first into the ground and squirmed round to see who was holding him. 

Phillip.  Naturally. 

He kneed Phil in the stomach and using all the strength he’d been building up since he’d starting dating Rae, he picked Phil up and slammed him, bodily, into the ground, ending up on top of him. 

Phillip grunted as the air was forced out of him and Finn followed up with a hard knee to the ribs before putting his hand on Phil’s face, using it to push off from while getting up.  Finn laughed as Phil tried not to curl up and had to smile in begrudging respect as he slowly got to his feet.

“Alright lad.”  Finn said as Phillip spat out some blood again.  Phillip was proving to be a good match; and he liked that, it was boring if they were too easy.  But he liked that in sport.  Not with Rae. 

He barged Phil again and he staggered back.  Finn saw the ball sailing towards him and leapt up, using Phil to get the height he needed to get above the other players.  He kicked it in to Archie, who obviously felt like showing off, because he scissor kicked it through the goals. 

Finn set off sprinting down the field knowing that the ball would be kicked far.  Phillip gritted his teeth and followed; Finn was the forward he’d been assigned to, he had to defend against him, even though he felt like he needed a quick breather. 

 

 

Rae put her hands over her mouth as a reds player jumped up, kneeling on Finn’s back to get the ball.  They both fell hard and she whimpered in sympathy as he winced slightly while getting up.  The reds player passed the ball and Finn was sprinting after it in no time.  A crushing tackle saw to it that the reds run was short lived and the total domination that the second years had subjected them to was set to continue. 

“This has been the best day of my life.”  Chloe mumbled beside her.  Many of the lads had torn shirts.  They were covered in sweat, blood, grass stains and mud.  There was probably a good layer of bruising on most of them too.  And she knew that at least two of the first years had broken bones, and she’d seen a second year lad spit out a tooth.  But Izzy told her there was no way it was a tooth. 

There was no doubt that this was a brutal sport.  And she loved it.  Her underwear was wet, and she could barely tear her eyes away from Finn as he wove in and out of the defence.  And the battle between Phillip and Finn was strangely arousing. 

Phillip had the ball and was turning to pass it when Finn slammed into him, the ball ending underneath the two of them as they grappled on the ground.  It really looked like they could start fighting or fucking at any moment.  Rae made a slight sound of desire and was surprised at herself.  A sympathetic groan came from Izzy on one side and Chloe on the other; they understood. 

“D’you know, I haven’t felt horny since…”  Chloe stopped, “well in months.” She finished softly.  “It’s so nice to want sex for myself, not just cos he wants it.”  She grinned at them and Izzy and Rae shared her excitement.  “Look at them fit lads.”  She marvelled, “I might… I might try going out again.  Just slowly.”  She said as she watched the game closely. 

“Wait to make that decision when you’re not looking at…”  Izzy searched for the word, “this.”  She ended inadequately. 

“Good advice.”  Rae agreed watching the way Finn’s body moved as he ran past very close, body slamming an opponent out of the way.  Rae shook her head tragically, lust taking her over.  “He is just sex.”  She whispered. 

Chop’s voice was starting to give out from all the yelling so he sat down and looked at them.

“Alright?”  He asked merrily and they nodded.  Rae’s throat was pretty sore from cheering Finn’s goals too. 

On the other side of the field Finn was tackling another player, Archie grabbing the dropped ball, passing it on.  The ball was passed several times before it was intercepted and returned back the other way, and Chop was back on his feet screaming hoarsely. 

A brutal tackled stopped the reds in their tracks and another fight broke out, the seventh for the match.  This one was bigger, and a lot of punches were thrown, several of them between Finn and Phillip before it was broken up.  Finn came away from the scuffle rubbing his jaw and muttering under his breath.  The umpire bounced the ball up again and the reds actually got the ball from a bounce.  A fumbled pass led to a huge kick going high into the air.  20 metres ahead Finn could see Phillip, his eyes on the ball, stretching his arms up to catch it.  Finn felt the sadistic grin creeping across his face as he shot of at a sprint.

“Finn’s gonna snatch the ball!”  Chop cried out, “Probably get one last goal!” 

Finn ran, and launched himself at Phillip, his shoulder impacting with Phil’s chest and upper stomach.  He felt a satisfying crunching snap as he slammed Phil into the ground.  He leapt up, saw the ball on the other side of Phillip and stepped on his stomach to get over him to the ball.  He picked it up and booted it hard towards the goal.  It sailed through the posts and the audience screamed with delight.  His team mates cheered, running over to him to celebrate.  He laughed merrily; the game was almost over, they could feel it, and they had slaughtered the first years 86 to 24. 

The umpire blew his whistle.  The match was over; it was a resounding victory to the second years.  Finn turned back to Phillip, still lying where he’d left him, trying to get his breath.  He strolled over.

“So turns out, you’re as much of a Neanderthal as me?”  Finn grinned down at Phillip, and pointed to the bruise coming up on his jaw, put there by Phillip.  The audience was cheering wildly.  Finn was aware that there was a lot of gambling done on this game and he could see the happiness in the faces of people as he looked around. 

Finn offered him a hand and Phil took it, getting up slowly.

“Rib broken?”  Finn asked cockily.

“I think so.”  Phil gritted. 

“You’re alright Phil.”  Finn grinned, “But stay away from me girl.”  Finn said slapping him on the back, enjoying the wince from Phil. 

“Not gonna happen.”  Phil said painfully.  Finn took him in for a minute.

“I understand that.  There’s not much I wouldn’t do for her.”  Finn answered honestly, “but she’s my girl, so it’s my job to do those things for her.  Not yours.”

“She won’t be your girl forever.”  Finn’s goodwill towards Phil after winning the match so soundly, was wearing thin.

“Right.”  Finn said making how unimpressed he was clear, “There’s really only 3 things you need to know about me right now Will.”  Finn said motioning for Macca not to come over.  “One.  If you’re her stalker.  I’ll fucking kill you.”  He smiled, almost sweetly at Phil, “two, if you don’t back off, I’ll keep finding new and interesting things to do to you, until you do.”  He looked out across the playing field and saw the two teams intermingling all over the field, shaking hands and making up, “and three, if you back off her.  I’ll back off you.”  Finn patted his back again, hard, “have a think about it.”  He turned and jogged off to Archie who was jumping up and down on the spot with his hands held high, enjoying the audience cheers. 

“I fucking love this game!”  He yelled at Finn, blood in the corner of his mouth, a bruise forming on his cheek.  Finn got a cheer as he came closer to the audience; he had been the main goal scorer, Archie the second.  He looked around and saw Chop in his usual spot, standing and yelling blue bloody murder.  And beside him were three cheering girls.

“Oh shit.”  Finn worried about what Rae thought.  If she had fretted for his safety, if she was angry about how hard he’d been on Phillip.  He spat out blood again and wiped his mouth with his shirt before slowly jogging over.  He saw Izzy start to kiss Chop passionately.  Chloe looking out at the other players hungrily, and Rae coming forward to the fence. 

Phillip looked up and saw Finn reach Rae.  Finn looked worried, his body language was clear as day; apologetic, vulnerable.  Phillip had never seen Finn like that. 

“Hey.”  He said softly as he got to her, the crowd in the area cheering him wildly, but he could only see her.  “I’m sorry about-” but her mouth was on his and his body instantly reacted to hers, as it always did. 

It was not what Phillip had expected.  He watched Finn wrap his arms around her, saw her hands travel down his body.  His team mates were calling to him so he turned away, his innards in turmoil; she took the lead sometimes it seemed. 

“NELSON!”  Macca called out to him “if you’ve got the energy to do that you didn’t run hard enough!”  This was met with laughter and jeering from his team and the audience near them, but Finn ignored them, enjoying Rae’s mouth far too much to take heed.

“Get y’arse in the change room!”  Macca ordered.  Rae pulled away from him slowly, her eyes found his.

“Don’t shower.”  She whispered to him and he gave her a questioning look.  “I wanna fuck you with all that mud and sweat and blood all over you.”  His lips slowly crept into a smile.

“Oh yeah?”  He breathed.  She nodded and he made a gentle groaning noise as he kissed her again. 

“And you’ll have to be late to the after game drinks.”  She shrugged as if apologetically.

“I’ll survive it.”  He nodded solemnly.  They kissed again and she gently pushed him away.

“Get going then.”  She nodded towards the change rooms.  “Don’t even change your clothes.”  He nodded at her final order and jogged back to the change rooms, looking over his shoulder at her several times, a huge, disbelieving grin on his face. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Something 4 the weekend’ by Super Fury Animals _

 

_Dear Diary_

_It’s almost a pity that most of Finn’s bruises have healed up.  I kept getting horny flashbacks to that game every time I saw them._

_Is that wrong?  I mean, bruises hurt… but holy Jesus Christ on a sidecar that game has opened my eyes up to the world of testosterone fuelled sexiness._

_I wonder if Finn would ever make out with a guy for me?  No scratch that thought.  I don’t want anyone but me to kiss him.  But oh my, he can play that game again.  Anytime he wants._

_Phillip is still wincing through his broken ribs, but Finn says he’s putting it on for sympathy.  I dunno though; that last tackle looked painful._

_And also like it could have ended up in fucking.  Violent fucking._

_What is wrong with my brain?_

_I suppose I’m thinking about things like that a lot more lately because I don’t want to think about other things that are happening in me head._

_There’s this thing gnawing away at me insides.  A few weeks have passed since Finn went back home to his da, and things are settling back down.  As much as they can when your friend is dying of fucking cancer!_

_But we have to be happy.  For her._

_So I try not to think about it._

_I try to lock it up in a tiny little box that I’ve got in me head for all the things that I don’t wanna think about._

_But maybe that box were full.  Cos now that I’ve shoved cancer in there, something else has popped out._

_And I can’t stop thinking about it._

_Why did me dad leave me mum and me?_

_Why?_

_And he hasn’t written me back._

_Is it that easy to just not have me in his life?_

_What kind of man just abandons his child?_

_I feel like I have to know._

 

 

Life had settled down considerably over the last few weeks.  Rae still stayed at Finn’s house more than her own; her mother was crying a lot, but Karim seemed to be slowly working through it.  But Rae was just not able to cope with more misery. 

_Am I a bad daughter?_

_I know I should be there for me mum.  But I just feel exhausted, like I got no more left in me for sad stuff._

She slept at home and helped out with Aiesha 2 to 3 nights a week and Linda was still allowing Finn to stay overnight, although, since there had been no more gifts from the stalker since the dead bird, she was starting to suggest that this should change. 

_Archie thinks that it were a goodbye note.  Sorta saying I ripped his heart out like he ripped the heart of that poor bird out._

_Ugh stalkers are creepy.  But I like Archie’s theory._

_And everyone seems to be accepting it.  Except for Finn.  He worries so much.  But I have convinced him to get out and do boxing every morning again.  He likes that._

_And I like that he likes it._

_I just feel so safe with him._

_I know at therapy he talks a lot about his temper being dangerous and all.  But I just don’t see it that way.  And even Kester has admitted that it’s getting better.  I think the boxing helps._

She looked over at Finn who was looking at her curiously, she had pushed away her breakfast plate and was holding Aiesha, absent minded, even letting her little fingers curl around the necklace Finn had given her.  Something she never let Aiesha do normally.  Linda was sitting, reading a magazine intently.  Her mood had been better the past few days, and Rae was starting to hope that she was finally on the mend.

Although, as Rae was well aware, the path to recovery was never a straight line.  Karim was at work; Rae preferred it when he was around, he just seemed to know what he was doing. 

_Karim always looks after me mum, like how Finn looks after me._

_I’m glad she found him._

_And it’s not that I want contact with me dad again.  It’s just.  I want to know why._

“Mum?”  Rae gently stopped Aiesha from pulling at the necklace, “Not that little one,” she had taken to calling Aiesha ‘little one’ like Finn did.  “That’s too precious.”  She put some of her own hair in Aiesha’s little hand and barely seemed to notice as she pulled on it joyously.  Finn was glad to see her stop the necklace pull, but less glad that she didn’t see herself as more precious than the necklace.  He reached out for Aiesha and Rae handed the squirming baby to him. 

“Hm?’  Linda said without looking up.  Finn pulled a face at Aiesha and she seemed to respond to it, so he pulled another, watching her pull her own faces as she tried to figure out her own face. 

“How are you feeling today?”  Rae asked tentatively.

“Alright pet.”  She looked up from her magazine.  “What’s wrong?” 

“I’m just asking.”  Rae shrugged.  Linda put the magazine down and looked at her steadily.

“Well I’m fine.  You?”  Rae pulled a face and shrugged.

“Yeah alright.”  Rae fidgeted with her fork and Linda picked up the magazine again.  “Mum?”

“Hm?”  Linda asked as she put it back down.

“It’s just…”  Finn bounced Aiesha gently and watched Rae’s mouth and eyes as she figured out how to say what she wanted to say, “I been thinking a lot about Victor… dad.”  She added apologetically.  Finn cold almost feel the room get colder.  “I were just wondering why he left?”

“I really don’t know.”  Linda looked down at the magazine and moodily turned a page.  Rae looked apologetically at Finn and then turned back to her mum.

“It’s just Finn’s mum left.”  Finn understood the apologetic look now, “and she left a note… so… we kind know why.  But with dad…”

“He didn’t leave a note.”  Lind said quietly, “he just left.”  She looked up at Rae, “He would sometimes just take off for days at a time with no notice, I used to think it was charming.”  She took a bite of food and chewed it thoughtfully, “there were a lot of problems.”  She answered in a tight voice, “We argued a lot.  I didn’t feel very supported.  The length of time he spent away kept getting longer.”  Linda looked away.  “So when he just up and left again.  I didn’t wait to see if he’d come back.  I packed as much of our stuff as I could carry and left.”  She looked back down at her magazine, “the only time he tried to contact me was 2 years later when he issued the divorce papers.  I didn’t try to get any of his stupid property.  And he didn’t try to take my baby girl from me.  So it was alright.”

“Right.”  Rae said softly.  “So you both… kinda left each other?”  Linda nodded.  Rae mulled this over and Linda watched her closely.  Finn tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, looking down at Aiesha and gently cooing at her as he laid her down on his lap, her feet at his stomach, her head at his knees and gently bounced her, his hand steadying her as she squirmed around. 

“Alright?”  Linda asked and Rae slowly nodded.  Linda looked over to Finn and smiled softly, a curious gleam in her eye.

“D’you think you’ll have children one day Finn?”  Finn looked up with wide eyes, his mouth open, not knowing how to answer.  He looked over at Rae and Linda noticed that, and felt protectiveness for her daughter rising.

“Yeah I s’pose.”  He said, his eyes still on Rae, gauging her response.  He still wasn’t sure where she stood on this topic. 

“Not too soon I hope?”  Her voice was firm, more a command than a question.  Finn felt his face reddening slightly and wanted to answer that it was up to Rae when it happened.  But he didn’t know if she even really wanted kids.

“No.”  He answered inadequately. 

“Well make sure you don’t abandon them if you do have ‘em.”  She said pointedly.  Finn turned his eyes to Linda.

“He’d never do that.”  Rae answered before he had chance to respond.  Linda took a deep, unimpressed breath and looked back down at her magazine shaking her head. 

“Can one of you two change her please?”  Linda ordered without looking up. 

“Alright.”  Rae held her hands out to take her but Finn shook his head.

“I’ll do it.”  The past few weeks had seen his confidence with Aiesha growing, and he volunteered to do a lot of things for her now.  Linda watched him leave the room and turned her eyes back to Rae.

“You two are getting serious.”  She noted. 

“I suppose.”

“How serious?”

“I dunno.”  Linda blinked a few times, her baby girl growing up.  She felt tears sting her eyes, “Just be careful.”  She said and sniffed.

“You don’t have to worry about me mum.”  Rae smiled reassuringly. 

“Of course I do Rae!”  Linda said sadly, “nothing ever ends up right.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Be Aggressive’ by Faith No More _

 

Calm days were excellent for forming routines.  And Rae and Finn were starting to get into a good one.  She loved that he was starting to be less hyper-vigilant and over-protective; she worried that it was getting exhausting for him.  And seeing a more relaxed Finn was good for her; it made her feel less anxious.

Although, there was one thing Rae hated about their new routine and that was the time Finn chose to go to the boxing joint.  The sun hadn’t even risen yet and she could hear him, trying to be silent.  His feet up on her chair doing push-ups.  Rhys had told him to raise his feet when normal ones were getting too easy for him.  50 normal push-ups, 30 broad push-ups, 20 narrow.  Then the sit ups, 100 normal, 100 oblique, 100 lower abdominal…

Rae had to admit it was nice to watch him workout.  But sleep was also nice.  After the sit ups, he’d put his clothes on and run to his session with Rhys.  Sometimes when he got back she’d go for a jog with him.  He was usually pretty tired by then, so she wasn’t too slow for him.  Sometimes, if they were at Rae’s house and Linda and Karim where out of bed he’d do chin ups too. 

He always kissed her forehead gently before he left, and she always pretended that he hadn’t woken her.  She could never get back to sleep, so she’d inevitably get back up and do some writing; she’d started to write a story down.  She looked up at the clock as she heard him leaving the house.  She got up and opened the curtains to watch him running up the road.  He always closed the curtains, and it had become a silent battle between them, because she liked to have the curtains opened.  Finn ran past a parked car and turned left towards the boxing joint.  Rae yawned and headed to the bathroom. 

 

 

“You’re dropping your left shoulder still.”  Rhys said and Finn took a deep breath and tried to focus.  Rhys had started him on kickboxing before he had started going out with Rae, and they were returning to that.  Finn punched and kicked at the pads as hard as he could and Rhys reacted as if Finn were a toddler stroking a butterfly. 

“What are you?  Three years old?  Hit me!”  They got into a rhythm and Finn didn’t notice Chop walking up.  “Take 5.”  Rhys said and Finn saw Chop had bought a bottle of water for him. 

“Thanks.”  He panted and took his gloves off, then his shirt before taking it. 

“You’ve put some size on.”  Rhys noted Finn’s increased muscle mass, “I thought you didn’t wanna get big.”

“I don’t.”  Finn said, “But I wanna be stronger.”

“Try some tri-sets with the weights.”  Rhys suggested.

“Wanna teach me?”  Finn asked and Rhys considered this for a moment.  “Yeah alright.  We’ll start next Monday.  Till then increase your push-ups – 50 of all three types.”  Finn nodded.  Chop was here to do some sparring with Finn, Rhys was going to coach them both. 

Rhys was a huge man.  6 foot 5 inches and 130 kilos of pure muscle.  His dark skin was covered with tattoos, and his head was shaved.  He had large hazel eyes and a goatee, dyed deep blue.  And today he wore red nail polish similar to the colour Janice had painted onto Rae’s nails a few weeks back.  Finn had once seen a guy say some pretty racist shit to Rhys, and he’d laughed and kicked the guy in the face.  No one at the boxing joint said shit to Rhys about anything.  Not his skin colour, not his dyed goatee, not the nail polish, not the fact that occasionally he wore skirts, not his sexuality, which everyone wondered about.  No one said a word; they’d all seen that kick, or heard about it. 

Rhys had started teaching boxing here when he was 16.  His first student had been little 10 year old Finn.  They had learned together, bumbling through the teacher student relationship to be real friends.  As Finn got older, he’d assumed that Rhys was gay; he knew that he and Tom had been close, and he’d seen Rhys around the place with guys.  But recently he’d also seen Rhys with some girls, so he really didn’t know.  And he got asked a lot about it in the locker room. 

Finn sat and watched Tom and Archie heating up.  Archie really was getting better, but Tom was so aggressive it was hard to keep up with him. 

“Rhys?”  Finn asked softly, not sure if he should talk about this, but it was Archie. 

“Yeah?”  He asked watching the sparring between two female boxers on the other side of the gym; they didn’t get nearly enough women in here. 

“Is Tom as much of a hot-head as he seems?”  Chop turned his eyes to Finn, but Finn was watching Rhys, waiting for his response. 

“You worried about your man Archie?”  Rhys asked.  Finn nodded and Rhys wiped his face.  “Tom likes to fuck hard.”  He said with no hesitation, “And he likes to fight hard.  But he won’t make Archie stay if he don’t want to.”  Rhys finished with a shrug.  Finn watched the fight, brutal, and oddly sexual with the way Tom grabbed Archie every now and then, one time putting him in a headlock, Archie elbowed him hard to get out of the hold.  These men were obviously lovers, the familiarity with which they sledged each other and touched each other was patently obvious.  It was sexual and it was violent.  He’d done some rough stuff with Rae, but nothing like this; this included fists.  And even though he didn’t know what was happening in the bedroom, he imagined it was similar to what was happening now, just with added penetration. 

“I’m surprised he went for Archie.”  Rhys said, “He’s not his usual type.”  He saw the question on Finn’s face, “Archie’s a bit young for him.”  Finn nodded and Chop kept watching them fight with a strange look on his face. 

“Alright.”  Finn said looking away from the fight.  Chop yawned and stretched.

“What’s up your arse?”  Rhys asked his grumpy face.

“Izzy were up puking half the night.”  He said trying not to sound sad, worried, going out of his mind with fear. 

“She still staying at your place then?”  Finn asked deliberately steering clear of the cancer talk, and Chop nodded, “How’s her parents taking that?”

“They hate it.  But she won’t go back till her dad apologise to me.  Which he won’t.”  Bradley had hit Chop at Izzy’s first chemotherapy session, accusing Chop of putting Izzy’s life at risk by making her delay treatment to get eggs harvested.  It wasn’t true, Izzy had chosen to do it herself, but it didn’t matter to Bradley, he needed to blame something. 

Chop had been telling Izzy since then that it was just emotions brimming over, that it was fine.  But Izzy was adamant.  It was a strange reversal of their roles.

“So I guess you guys are living together then?”

“For now.  I’m hoping Victoria will bring either him or her around.”  Chop said thoughtfully, “Izzy hates not talking to her da.  And it’s shite timing innit?” 

Rhys didn’t know what was wrong with Izzy, but he was aware that she was deeply unwell.  Finn and Chop kept taking for a bit then Rhys turned to Finn.

“And what’s up your arse?”

“Nothing.”

“There’s always something.”  Rhys returned, “And you’re more aggressive lately.”

“I thought I were getting me temper under control.”  Finn sounded disappointed with himself.

“Temper and aggression are different things.  And what makes you think your temper needs… tempering?”  Rhys asked with a sceptical look.

“Just do.”  Finn drank some water and looked away.

“Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do Finn.”  Rhys answered honestly.

“I been using me fists too much.”

“I doubt that.”  Rhys scoffed.  “Look around you Finn.  Everyone here is aggressive, they barely hold it under the skin.  But you… you wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“I been thumping people more lately.”

“The probably all deserved it.”  Rhys smiled.  “They were spiders.  Not flies.”  He explained, “Stop thinking that there’s something wrong with you cos you’re not afraid to punch a twat.”  Rhys shrugged, “Imagine if I hadn’t kicked Floyd in the face.”  Finn nodded, a thoughtful look on his face.  “Every cunt in this place would still be making slavery jokes at me if I hadn’t.  Knowing when to use your fists is a skill.  I think you’re doing pretty good Finn.”

“I thumped me dad.”  Finn countered.

“I said ‘pretty good’ not perfectly.”  Rhys smiled. 

“And I been real angry.”

“What are you angry about?”

“It’s a fear thing.”  Finn nodded his head and Rhys cocked his head to the side.  Chop’s ears pricked up.

“And you’re afraid of?”  Rhys prodded.

“Lots of things.”  Finn grinned, embarrassed, “Rae leaving me is a big one.”  He took a swig of water, “but I’m dealing with that… mostly I’m scared for Rae.”

“Fucking stalker twat!”  Chop agreed, also not entirely convinced by Archie’s theory. 

“Yeah.  But more than that even.”  Finn looked at his feet.  “She’s the strongest person I know… but there’s this vulnerable spot, right in the middle o’ her.”  Finn furrowed his brows and tried to think how to explain what troubled him, “And the more I get to know her, the closer I am to her… the more I see where people have touched her there.  Left a mark there.  How people have hurt her.”  His mind went to Liam instantly, but there were others.  Chloe, Linda, Victor, Saul, Archie, himself.  They’d all left a mark.  The fact that he was on that list was a never ending source of pain and shame for Finn.  Even though she never mentioned all his mistakes, all his failings. 

“Sounds like you both got a lot to punch out.”  Rhys said as he threw some gloves to Chop.  Finn put his gloves back on.

“We should do bare knuckles.”  Chop said to Rhys.

“Not today.”  Rhys said with absolute finality.  “I don’t want either of you to hold back.” 

 

 

Finn and Chop hit the showers, both feeling exhausted and bruised.  But both grinning stupidly.  Archie was already in the showers when they took one up on either side of him.

“ ‘Morning gents!”  Archie said with a big grin. 

“So are we getting straight to locker room talk?”  Chop said with a grin and turned his eyes to Archie pointedly. 

“What?”  Archie laughed. 

“You two…” Chop nodded suggestively. 

“Are still not going out.”  Finn said stiffly and Archie turned to him.

“Well it’s different for us innit?”  Archie said defensively, “We don’t get to get married and have kids and all that stuff.”  He scrunched his face in disappointment at Finn, “Don’t judge me.  Especially not after all the girls you had without going out.”

“I’m not judging.”  Finn lowered his eyes, “Sorry Arch.  I just worry ‘bout you.”

“I’m alright.”  Archie responded moodily.

“It does look pretty rough between you two.”  Chop backed Finn’s worries, but Archie just reached over the shower wall and made Finn turn around to display a long set of scratches down his back. 

“If Finn can get those and no one say anything, why are we saying anything about me?”

“Well Finn don’t leave marks like that on Rae.”  Chop answered.

“Yeah well I’m not the fucking girl in the relationship.”  Archie slammed open the door of his shower and stormed off.

“I just fucked up didn’t I?”  Chop sighed.

“We both did.”  Finn sighed with him.  “We’ll just go and apologise once he’s had time to cool down.”  Chop nodded.  But Archie stormed back in.

“Why do you think I’m the girl?”  He asked them both.  Finn bit the inside of his mouth and Chop looked away.  “Is it cos I’m younger?  Weaker?  Was it cos I lost me virginity to him?  What is it?”

“I don’t think you‘re the girl.”  Chop said, “But I do think you’re the physically weaker one.  So…”  Chop gesticulated trying to think of the right words, “So… it’s his job to be more careful with you.” 

“Right.”  Archie nodded his head in anger and turned to Finn, “And you think that way?”  Finn looked everywhere but Archie as he tried to think of what to say.

“I think… that Rae and me have been rough, yeah.  And it’s not just one way; I’ve done some pretty intense stuff to her and she often leaves marks on me… but we don’t use fists Archer.  And I think it’s just… new to Chop and me… I mean have you seen the bruise on your gut?”  Archie looked down at his naked body and saw an old purple bruise on his stomach.

“I get him good too.  D’you see his black eye?”

“I’m not trying to say it’s just one way.”  Finn said.  “I’m just trying to understand…” he shook his head “no, not even that… I’m just trying to make sure you’re actually alright.”

“D’you even use condoms?”  Chop asked, worried about some shit he’d heard at the mechanic about AIDS and gay men.  Archie glared at him angrily.

“That’s not your business.”  Archie retorted, “Do you?”

“Yeah, we always have.  But I’d have to anyway or else the chemo could poison me.”  That broke the tense mood as they all looked down, thinking about Izzy.

“I don’t use ‘em.”  Archie said placating Chop’s fears.  “But Tom gets checked regularly.” 

“Are you happy Archie?”  Finn asked, “Are you actually… happy?”  Finn shrugged, not knowing how to say what he meant.

“Yes.”  Archie replied.  “It’s rough, I won’t deny it.  But I like it.  And I like Tom.  And I’m happy.”  Finn nodded, satisfied with Archie’s response. 

“We alright?’  Chop asked and Archie rolled his eyes.

“Yeah we’re alright.” 

“I’m sorry.”  Finn said quietly as Archie got back into the shower.

“It’s fine.”  He answered, “Still got shampoo in me hair.”  Archie said as he turned the water back on and started rinsing his hair.  But Finn wasn’t listening as Chop and Archie joked that that was the only reason Archie had come back.  He as wondering why it was so bad to be the girl in the relationship.  And what did that even mean anyway?  He heard Chop ask him a question and turned his face to him with a question on his face.  Chop rolled his eyes.

“I said, what were this intense stuff you done with Rae, then?”  Finn scrunched his eyebrows slightly.

“I’m not sure if it’s right for me to talk about her like that you know.”  He said thoughtfully.

“Is this cos o’ that shite Phillip said to you?”  Archie asked him.

“No.”

“Fuck you’re a bad liar.”  Archie chuckled.

“Izzy says Rae talks about your ‘orgasmic sex’ all the time.”  Chop said in a slightly mocking voice and Finn couldn’t help but grin, “so she still talking about you…”  Chop shrugged, “so you can still talk about her… it’s the rules.”  He concluded. 

“Phillip’s just trying to rile you up.  He wants Rae pretty bad!”  Archie laughed.

“Who’s that?”  Chop asked.

“The guy Finn smashed at footy.”  Archie said with a grin.

‘I was wondering why you was so particular about him.”  Chop put shampoo in his hair, “D’you reckon Rae’d go for him?”

“No way.”  Archie replied, but Finn’s lack of response was quite conspicuous and they both turned to look at him. 

“They’re very good mates.”  Finn answered with a disgruntled look. 

“Fuck that shite.”  Chop shook his head.  “I’m gonna have to straighten our Rae Rae out.” 

“No don’t.”  Finn said softly.

“She has to talk to him for school work, don’t she?”  Archie added and Finn nodded.  Chop shook his head in disbelief.

“You two know nothing about girls!”  He said, “You need to lay the law down on this one Finlay!”  Finn started to laugh and Chop screwed his face up in frustration.

“What?”

“You imagine laying the law down with Rae?”  Finn asked, shaking his head at Chop.  Archie started to laugh too.  “You have no idea!”  Finn exclaimed.  “I have to practically beg her to not go roaming around at night time on account of her stalker.” 

“You gotta be firmer with her!” This set both Archie and Finn off laughing again. 

“Oh aye!”  Finn laughed, “That’d be the best way to lose her.”  He looked at Archie who was still laughing. 

“I’m telling you!”  Chop said, “You gotta tell her to stop being mates with the Phillip guy.”  Chop said, “And we both know I know more about girls than you.”  Chop said smugly.

“No you don’t.”  Finn shook his head laughing.

“Oh yeah?”  Chop laughed too, also shaking his head, knowing he was right.  Archie just kept laughing at both of them; they were such idiots. 

“D’you know girls can have wet dreams?”  Finn asked.  Chop and Archie both stopped laughing and looked at him.

“You what?”  Chop asked and Finn chuckled.

“Rae has sex dreams.  Apparently, so do Chloe and Izzy.”  Chop opened his mouth wide in surprise.

“My Izzy?”  Chop asked halfway between surprised and excited. 

“Do they cum?”  Archie asked weirdly fascinated.

“Rae gets real fucking close, but don’t tip over, you know?”  Finn said, “I fucking seen it.”  Archie and Chop looked suitably impressed.

“Holy shit!”  Chop said happily. 

“What else do you know about Izzy?”  Chop asked suddenly disconcerted.  Finn considered his response.  He couldn’t talk about the orgasm thing could he?

“You remember Elsa?”

“Go’ how could I forget her?”

“You ask who she is every time you see her.”  Archie laughed.

“Do I?”  Chop chuckled, “Shit.”

“Izzy said Elsa made her question her sexuality.”  Finn said with a shrug.  Chop’s eyes opened wide as he thought about that.  “That’s what Rae said.” 

“Bloody hell, could you imagine them two together?”  He suddenly said.  “You’re right about girls being dirtier than you think they are!”  Chop said.

“Aye, it’s not just Izzy, Rae was talking about a threesome with her.”

“Fucking do it.”  Chop said instantly, very seriously.

“I don’t even like girls and I can see that you should do it.”  Archie said solely, “For all lads everywhere.”

“Nah!”  Finn laughed.

“Are you fucking serious?”  Chop asked, “You wouldn’t have to ask me twice!”

“Rae’s plenty enough for me.”  Finn grinned happily.

“Yeah but that’s not what it’s about.”  Chop argued, “It’s about two girls at once!” 

“Yeah but-”

“Finn, I am telling you that you have to do this.”  Chop said earnestly.

“All I’m trying to say, is that you don’t know more about girls than me!”  Finn retorted, changing the subject.

“Alright, I’ll hand over me crown!”  Chop laughed. 

 

 

 

 

_‘Beautiful Ones’ by Suede_

 

“Ok, everyone back into the pairs you’ve been working in so far.”  Elsa said and Finn rolled his eyes so hard he thought he might end up spraining his retinas if he didn’t stop.  Stacey smiled sweetly and gently skipped over to him.  Rae gave him an almost despairing look; they were supposed to be starting with new partners for the next duologues and they’d been hoping to work together this time. 

“Before we start on the comedy duologues we’re going to spend 2 weeks doing some group work.”  Elsa explained.  “In your pairs, get together with some other pairings to create groups of 8 people.”  Izzy was sitting quietly, still able to do half days at school, but her doctors were pushing her to stop since her immune system was severely compromised.  But Izzy was becoming strangely adamant in her illness.  She didn’t want to get too far behind at school.  It was painful to see her pale face sometimes, but Chop had put them on notice.  They had to be happy.  Rae and Chloe sat on either side of Izzy, Finn next to Rae and Archie next to Finn.  The five of them didn’t move as everyone else started to move into groups of 8. 

“I guess we’re already a group.”  Stacey said as she looked at Phillip and Sam who had wandered over to Rae and Izzy.  Archie and Chloe had been paired before, Finn and Stacey, Rae and Phillip and of course Izzy and Sam.  Elsa walked around to each group handing them a folder of information. 

“In each folder there’s a different person.  Each one of them an interesting and important figure in theatre that contributed in different ways.  You will explore this person and their contributions and create a 20 minute performance piece in the style of this person’s contributions.”  Elsa handed her folder to Rae, who opened it up immediately.  “Not next Friday but the Friday after you’ll be performing this.  It’s worth 10% of your final mark.” 

“Antonin Artaud.”  Rae said, “And the theatre of cruelty.”  Finn watched the way her eyes lit up and put his hand on her thigh, his fingers tracing out some words.

_You’re beautiful._

She turned her eyes to him, alight with excitement. 

“I love Artaud.”

“Me too!”  Phillip exclaimed, and they both instantly started talking about the theatre of cruelty.  Finn watched, a lump in his throat.  Every time this happened he felt so stupid.  Kester had told him in their one on one sessions to remember all the times he did know what Rae was talking about; especially science, which he understood far better than her.  But it wasn’t just that he didn’t know what she was talking about, it was that invariably Phillip would. 

Stacey groaned loudly.

“Sounds like some BDSM rubbish.”  She complained.

“Nothing like it.”  Archie said and Izzy nodded.

“Artaud wanted to make the audience really experience danger, so he kinda made the audience super immersed in everything.”  Izzy remembered the readings they’d been given over the holidays, “He believed theatre should be realistic.  He said that was an act of cruelty against the audience.  Nothing to do with physical pain.”  She cleared her throat, feeling nauseous. 

“Right.  So mental pain.”  Sam joked.  They started to laugh and joke, figuring out how they would turn this into something on the stage.  Finn took the notes from Rae and quickly read over them, determined to keep up with her. 

Within minutes Phillip and Rae had started an outline of a script, everyone happily letting them take the lead, even Stacey admitting it was for the best. 

“I think we should stay away from tactile interactions.”  Izzy was countering Sam’s idea of physically touching the audience.  She ran her hand through her hair, as she had numerous times since she’d started chemotherapy, waiting for the inevitable clump of hair to come away in her hand.  But it hadn’t come yet.  Not until today.  In the middle of her performing arts class.  Everyone was talking happily, so no one but Chloe noticed Izzy as she pulled the clump of hair out of her head.  Rae saw it a moment later as Chloe gently lowered Izzy’s hand.  In the same movement Chloe put her hands over Izzy’s hiding the clump of hair so no one would see it.  Rae added one of her own hands, hiding it completely.  Izzy’s breath caught in her throat as she felt a sob wanting to rise in her chest.  But she tried to keep a straight face, tried to focus on what was happening in the class. 

Finn caught the change in mood and turned to Rae, he saw Chloe and Rae holding Izzy’s hands.  He knew something had happened to Izzy, he nudged Archie and drew his attention to it and heard a soft, sharp intake of breath.  Archie raised his hand and Elsa nodded that she’d be over in a moment.  Rae saw what Archie had done and tried to not draw too much attention to Izzy, so even though she wanted to debate Stacey and Sam’s ideas and back Phillip up on the points he was making, she stayed silent.  As Elsa approached, Rae removed her hand a little, Chloe understanding what she was doing did the same, Elsa saw the clump of hair in Izzy’s hand and nodded her understanding.  Izzy had elected to keep her illness private, but the teachers were made aware of it. 

“I want you all to take a 10 minute break.”  Elsa called out as she turned away.  There was a murmur throughout the class; they’d been working for less than 15 minutes.  “And in that 10 minutes I want each one of you to come up with an idea for your performance piece.  And your group will be obliged to try and work it into the piece in some way.”  For the students that were not being listened to in their groups this was an excellent idea and everyone started to disperse throughout the hall to think privately.  Izzy stood up slowly, Chloe and Rae beside her and the three of them left the hall without a word, unnoticed.

As soon as they were in the corridor Izzy stopped and leaned against the wall.  Chloe and Rae checked the hallway, there was no one around.  Rae looked back at the door and saw Elsa’s back in the doorway, stopping anyone else from leaving the hall. 

Izzy held up the clump of hair and let the tears that had been threatening before finally come.  She ran her hand through her hair again and another, smaller clump fell away, tangling in her fingers. 

“Oh Izzy.”  Chloe said sympathetically.  Rae put an arm around her shoulders.  Izzy stared at the hair.

“It was bound to happen.”  She said in a small voice.  She sniffed as she put the two separate handfuls together.  “Chop loves my hair.”  She whispered to the clumps as she rolled it up and shoved it in her pocket.  There was nowhere else to put it.  She looked at Chloe then Rae. 

“It’ll only keep getting worse from here.”  Her eyes were already sunken, her small body losing weight every day.  She ran both of her hands through her hair, less fell out this time, but they all knew it was inevitable. 

“Chlo.  Can you get some scissors?”  Chloe nodded in reply and left Rae and Izzy in the hallway, heading back to Elsa, standing in the doorway protectively, facing in to her other students. 

“You gonna cut it off?”  Rae asked and gently stroked her beautiful red waves.  Izzy nodded.

“It’ll be less obvious when it falls out.”  She said with a determination that Rae had never really seen in anyone before. 

“Do you want me to do it for you?”

“Could you?’  Izzy asked urgently, “I don’t know if I can do it myself Rae.”

“Of course I’ll do it.”  Rae said gently, “You can cut mine if you want.  Then it’ll be less obvious when we go back in.”  Rae smiled, “people’ll just think we been les-ing out together.  Let’s already a rumour going round that I’m a lesbian so…”  Izzy grinned and touched Rae’s hair.

“I can’t ask you to cut your hair Rae.”

“No but I will.”

“Thank you.”  Izzy threw her arms around Rae as Chloe was heading back with some scissors.

“Listen Izzy.”  Chloe said, “I were thinking I should cut my hair too, so it’s less obvious.”  Izzy burst into tears and drew Chloe into the hug with Rae. 

The three girls clung to each other, all of them crying until Izzy pulled back.

“We gotta do it.”  She breathed deeply and took the scissors from Chloe.  She took a large lock of hair in her hand and cut it brutally short.  She wrapped the lock up again and shoved it in her pocket.  She handed the scissors to Rae. 

“Chlo.  Can you gather it all, make sure none stays here.”  Chloe nodded and looked at Rae, who with shaking hands took another large lock of Izzy’s hair and gently cut it, trying to match the length Izzy had already done.  She handed the lock to Chloe and grabbed another one.  Izzy was stoically calm, while Rae concentrated and Chloe tried not to cry. 

 

 

Inside the hall Finn and Archie tried to not stare at the door.  Elsa gave them a one minute warning and they started to head back to their groups.  Phillip and Archie ended up sitting next to each other and Archie looked at him as they waited for the rest of the group to assemble. 

“Why won’t you back off Rae?”  He suddenly asked.  “You know Finn’s just gonna torture you until you do.” 

“Is this the part where you play the concerned citizen?”  Phillip said with a cynical smile. 

“I guess.”

“You shouldn’t worry about me.”  Phillip answered.  “I can handle Finn.” 

“No but really?  Why won’t you back off?  She’s with Finn.”  Archie couldn’t understand.

“Rae hasn’t told me to back off.”  Phillip said simply, “she’s the only one who can.”  Archie nodded his head, understanding the truth in his words. 

“Isn’t the fact that she’s with Finn enough of a no for you?”

“Stacey used to be with Finn.  She’s not anymore.” 

“Why would you just wait around for them to break up, rather than find someone else?”

“I didn’t choose to fall in love with Rae.”  Phillip said honestly.  “It wasn’t intended.  At first I thought she were just a great singer.  Then she was funny too.  I thought she’d just be a good laugh to hang around; a bit of fun.  But she so beautiful.  And the more I got to know her, the more I realised that she is perfect.”  Phillip looked at Archie, “So you think I’m a fool for risking the wrath of Finn, for hanging around waiting.  But wouldn’t I be a fool for giving up on love too easily?”  He looked down at his hands, “I’m in love with her.  So I’ll wait.  And I’ll put up with that twat being a twat.”  Archie looked down and then over at Finn.

“He loves her too.”

“I know.”  Phillip said, “In his own way.”  He smiled grimly, “I’m here for the long haul Archie.”  He looked at the door that Rae had left through, “I have faith she’ll make the right choice in the end.” 

 

 

Chloe took her own hair elastic out and tied Izzy’s hair together, then handed it to Izzy.  She held up her cut off the impromptu ponytail and felt her short, cropped hair. 

“You look super cute with short hair Izzy.”  Rae grinned and Izzy smiled in return. 

“I think we should use black lights if we got any for the group piece.”  Izzy said firmly and Rae nodded.

“Good idea.”

“Can you tell Elsa I went home?  I don’t think I can go back in there.”  Izzy lowered her eyes.

“For sure.”  Chloe said and she hugged Izzy.

“We’ll see you tomorrow yeah?”  Izzy nodded in response to Rae and hugged her before turning and heading for the exit, her long pony tail of cut off hair dangling from her hand. 

Rae and Chloe walked back into the room holding hands, feeling dejected. 

“Do you think we should cut our hair anyway?’  Chloe asked.

“I think we should just do whatever Izzy says.”  Rae responded and Chloe decided that was best. 

“Yeah, seeing us with short hair might just constantly remind her… or seeing is with long hair might too…”  Chloe shook her head.  “There’s no right answer is there?”

“I don’t think so.”  Rae took a look around the room and found Finn, his eyes filled with concern watching her. 

 

 

They drove back to Finn’s house after school, Rae explaining to him what had happened. 

“It just feels so much more real now.”  Rae said.  “Like it’s really happening.”  Finn put a hand on her thigh but kept his eyes on the road.  “It’s like I were convincing myself that she had the flu or something and that’s why she looked so pale… but now…” she tutted at herself, “must sound so daft.”

“No.  No, it doesn’t.”  Finn’s voice was filled with understanding and she leaned over and kissed his cheek. 

“So what’d you get on your performing arts essay?”

“I haven’t looked.”  Finn said with a solemn grin.  Elsa had handed them back, folded, so as to maintain privacy.  The first thing Rae’d done was open it up.  A-.  Not a bad mark.  Phillip had gotten and A.  She’d have to beat him next time.  But Finn had shoved his in his bag without looking. 

They pulled up at his house and he jumped out to open the door for her.  He took her hand, and the bags and walked towards the door.

“Why haven’t you looked?”  She continued their conversation.

“Not brave enough.”  He chuckled, but lowered his eyes.  The door was unlocked, meaning his dad was home early from work; he always left the door unlocked for Finn.  Finn always locked it after he got in. 

“What are you worried about?”  She turned to him.

“I dunno.”  He avoided making eye contact with her.  She waited for him to speak, letting the silence draw out.  “It’s the first essay I’ve actually tried on.”  He said softly.  “I mean, really it’s the first bit of homework in College that I really, really tried on.  Science I do easy, and music I do half-arsed, except for that song I was doing for you… but that never got anywhere near the school in the end.”  He sighed, “And I know I’ve done some English stuff since this.  But this was the first essay I ever really did.  And it’ll be my first mark back.”

“You tried, so you’ll get a good mark!”  Rae said encouragingly.

“What if I don’t?”

“What were your grades like before?”

“A’s and B’s for science.  Solid B in music.  D’s and F’s for everything else.”  He looked up at her. 

“So what do you think would be a good mark in a performing arts essay?”  Rae asked, “Since it were your first essay ever?”  Rae sat down with him at the kitchen table, “realistically, what do you think will be a good enough mark?”

Finn considered this for a long time.

“I’d like a C+” Finn said slowly.  “I think I put in like an A effort, but I think the content and the structure might not be that good, especially not after doing Mrs Vines’ critical essay writing assignment.” 

“C+?”  She asked and he nodded.  “That would be quite an improvement from D’s and F’s.”  Rae agreed.  “But I’ll be just as proud of you if you get as D.”  She added meaningfully. 

“What if I get an F?”

“You won’t.”  Rae smiled, “You handed in an actual essay; Elsa won’t fail you.”  Rae picked up his bag and sorted through it finding out the folded up essay.  She handed it to him and he looked down at it. 

“Hi Rae, hi Finn.”  Gary breezed into the kitchen and started making a cup of tea.  “Now just reminding you two that I’m at a conference from tonight until Monday, and Janice will be in Leeds for most of that time.”

“We remember!”  Rae said and gave Finn a dirty wink.  He grinned at her but turned to his dad.

“Tonight?”  Finn asked surprised.

“I got a redeye flight.  I thought I told you?”  He answered.

“You told me.”  Rae answered and Gary nodded.

“Of course!”  He remembered and shook his head, “Now you two will be ok alone, yeah?”

“Yeah.”  Finn replied.  And Gary busied himself in the kitchen.

“Open it.”  Rae said softly.

“What is it?”  Gary asked as he looked over.

“Me first mark back.”  Finn answered.

‘Oh yeah?  Science, music or other?’  Gary asked grimly.

“Other.”  Finn looked down at the essay and his father put on a brave face.

“Performing arts essay.”  Rae explained.

“Essay?”  Gary said, “You actually did it then?”  He sounded amazed and came and sat down at the table. 

“Yeah da thanks!”  Finn said with a laugh and a shake of the head.  Gary looked over at Rae and they shared a grin as Finn opened it up.  He stared at it for a long time silently.  Rae and Gary looking at him expectantly. 

“What’d you get?”  Rae asked eventually, not sure whether to be worried or excited.  Finn looked up at her, a grin slowly spreading across his face.

“B+” He turned it to her and watched the smile light up her face.

“B+?”  Gary asked and took the essay.  “Bloody hell.”  He marvelled.  “Do I put this up on the fridge?”  He joked.

“Dad!”  Finn said, obviously chuffed. 

“Yep.  I’m putting it on the fridge!”

“No we gotta read the comments!”  Rae laughed and reached for the essay, “They tell you how to improve!”

“Let’s just enjoy the mark first.”  Gary answered as he put it up on the fridge.  “I think this is the first essay you’ve actually ever written.”  Gary stared at it and Finn laughed and blushed. 

“I’m not 5 da!”  Finn giggled, really pleased with himself and Rae was thrilled for him. 

“I don’t care how old y’are.  A good mark is a good mark!”  He turned to Finn and gave him a hug, “I’m real proud of the effort you’re putting in.  I’m glad you’re getting rewarded for it.”  Gary looked at the essay again.  “I think I’ll get take out for dinner in celebration.”  He declared and went to find the take out menus.  Rae leaned over and kissed him.

“Better than a C+.”  She said in a low voice and he nodded.

“I can’t believe it.” 

“Well while your father feeds you as a celebration, I’ve got something else in mind.”  She said suggestively and he smiled. 

‘Yeah?”

“Something a little special I’ve been waiting for the right time to do.”  He felt his body throb in anticipation.

“Something special?”  He breathed.

“You’ll have to wait till your da goes tonight though.”

“Oh but that’s hours away.”  He groaned.

“Oh I know.”  She smiled innocently. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Physical (You’re So)’ by Nine Inch Nails _

 

Finn closed the door as his dad pulled out of the driveway.  He’d offered to drive him to the airport, hoping he’d choose to use the long term parking instead, like he usually did. 

He’d been asking Rae all afternoon what it was she was planning to do tonight.

_What is it?_

Had been traced on her body so many times, only to get an enigmatic smile in return, every time. 

He turned to her, to see her disappearing up the stairs.  He bounded after her, a huge expectant grin on his face. 

When he got into his room he closed the door behind them and instantly took her into his arms but she pushed him away hard.

“Don’t touch me.”  She ordered seductively.  He gave her a confused look and took his hands off her.  “Strip.”  She breathed as he backed off.  Finn started to take his clothes off, a confused and bemused smile on his face.

“Alright girl.”  He stood before her naked, she was still fully clothed.  “Your turn.”  He nodded at her clothes, wanting her to get naked with him.  She shook her head, a devious smile on her face.

“Get on the bed.”  He bit his bottom lip, not sure what she was playing at, but his whole body was exciting and aching for her, and this was something completely new.  He kept his lustful eyes on her as he sat on the bed.

“Down boy.”  She whispered.  And he opened his mouth in surprise, but silently laid down.  She slowly stripped her tights off and he watched, entranced by her actions.  She brought them over to him and put them to his face, he could smell her on them.  She hadn’t worn underwear under them.  All day.  And she hadn’t told him.  She’d waited for this moment to give him the smell of her to reveal it.  He groaned and licked his lips.  He reached out for her and she gave him a disapproving look.

“Uh-uh!”  She ordered and his hands dropped, a questioning but excited look on his face.  She straddled him, her warm cunt resting on his erect cock.  He narrowed his eyes in desire, bit his bottom lip, but kept his hands off her.  She took his hand and tied the end of her stocking around his wrist.  Understanding crept across Finn’s face and he moaned appreciatively as she laced the stockings through the woodwork of his bedhead, pulling his arm up above his head, and leaving the other leg of the stocking available to tie his other wrist, which he gladly offered up to her. 

She tied him tightly, securely, checking the bonds and he grinned at her as she worked.  She got off him, went to her bag of clothes and bent over, her skirt riding up, showing him a view of her arse.  He licked his lips in anticipation for what she had planned while staring at her bare flesh.  She gathered up some things from her bag, and to Finn’s surprise she went to his desk and pulled out one of the sex books he’d stashed there.  She turned to him with a sinuous smile on her face.  She strolled back to him and put all the items on the floor, where he couldn’t see them.  She pulled out the other set of tights and tied his ankles. 

She looked down at him, and without a word she turned and left the room.  Finn groaned and pulled at his bindings as he watched her close the door. 

In the bathroom Rae looked in the mirror, her innards buzzing.

“Am I really gonna do all o’ this?”  She looked in the mirror and found herself smiling, “yes I am.”  She felt giddy with power as she heard him call her name lustily.  She pulled her hair into a messy, high pony tail and opened her secret weapon.  The bright red lipstick she’d finally built up the nerve to buy a little while ago.  She slowly, carefully applied the lipstick to her full mouth and looked at the result.

“Fucking amazing.”  She marvelled at how a slash of red on her mouth could make her feel ten times more seductive than she’d ever felt.  He was calling her name again, urgently, hungrily. 

She took a deep breath and headed back into his room.  He instantly stopped pulling on his bindings the moment she returned.  His eyes fell to her lips and a soft, appreciative sigh escaped his mouth.  She sat on the edge of the bed and ran her finger down his chest, down to his stomach, stopping at his navel.  She’d gotten a taste for torturing him when she’d been on her period.  But this would be far better, because at the end of it, she intended to untie him and let him do whatever he wanted to her. 

She picked up ‘the new joy of sex’ and opened it to one of the pages he’d dog eared  reading it silently, his eyes on her, she looked over the top of the book at him.

“Biting?”  She asked and he grinned cheekily.  She flicked to another dog eared page, “Discipline?”  She read through it, already knowing what it said, she’d been peeking looks at this book for weeks, “start gently…  She mused, “Gradually build up force.”  She flicked to another page, “feathers…” another page, “rear entry; any position where he takes her from behind...”  She looked up at him, “we’ve only done that a few times.”  She said sadly and looked back down at the book.  “Mouth music.”  She looked at the picture in the book that accompanied this heading; a woman giving oral sex to a man.  She looked at Finn, “interesting book.”  She turned back to it, “Particularly this part.”  She showed him the page on bondage and he bit his bottom lip and looked at her expectantly a gentle blush creeping over his face. 

“How long have you known about that book?”  He asked cheekily. 

“A while.”  She bent over to pick up something else.

“Oh aye?”  He breathed, beyond excited.

“And I’ve read it all now.  So many ideas.”  Her eyes glinted with deviousness as she flitted a feather over the side of his stomach and he sucked air in quickly.

“Tickles.”  He whispered.

“Don’t move.”  She ordered and he closed his eyes, bracing himself as the feather travelled over his other side.  Her hand travelled down his stomach, her fingernails scratching, as the feather tickled his side.  She watched him bite his bottom lip, steadying himself and when he opened his eyes, he was calmer; ready for whatever she was planning, ready for her.  She saw that look, and knew she could begin. 

Slowly she kissed down his stomach, leaving a trail of red lipstick, her lips dragging slightly as she licked his skin.  He watched her mouth on him, and tried to supress his groans, wanting to let it all build up for when she inevitably untied him. 

She surprised him by instantly taking him into her mouth.  He was expecting far more torture.  He watched her bright red lips riding up and down his shaft and groaned loudly.  She sucked him passionately, with more ferocity than she’d ever had before. 

“Oh fuck.”  He moaned as he watched the head of his cock slide out of her red lips. 

“Tell me what you like.”  She ordered in a soft breathy voice.

“I like that just fine.”  He nodded his head slowly, his eyes never leaving her mouth as she engulfed his glans again.  Her eyes looked up at him.  He moaned as she took his full length into her throat, gagging slightly but pushing past it.  He groaned urgently and thrust his hips, ramming his cock into her throat. 

And then she stopped.

He looked at her bewildered.

“Why’d you stop?”  He asked with real pleading in his voice.  She reached down to beside the bed.

“That’s enough of pleasure.”  Her voice wavered, unsure of what she was doing.  A thrill of excited fear shot through Finn.  He had no idea what was coming next; and she wasn’t entirely sure of what she was about to do.  “Time for some pain.”  She lit a candle and he watched the flame, a knot forming in his stomach.  Chloe had told her about this.  Said it drove men wild.  Made them angry, made them fuck even harder.  Rae was ready for that.  Rae wanted an angry Finn to fuck her hard.

“What?”  He asked incredulously, his eyes on the flame.  She held the candle high above his chest and tipped it letting the wax slowly dribble out onto him.

He took a shuddering gasp in as the hot wax hit his chest.  It hurt.  Exquisitely.  He groaned, unexpectedly excited. 

“Fucking hell.”  He gasped as she moved the candle closer, hotter wax pouring onto him this time.  She leaned down and bit his inner thigh.  A short, sharp nipping bite.  And he yelped, not expecting it. 

He looked up into her eyes and saw that she was far from done with him.

“Enough pain?”  He pleaded, the bite on his thigh throbbing.  “More pleasure?” 

“Not if you ask for it.”  Rae said with a cocky grin as she poured more wax on him.  He grunted with pain and desire for her. 

“What if I beg?” 

“Just shut your pretty mouth.”  Finn was gasping through the frustration, pain and desire.  He slowly closed his mouth and she put the candle down.  He understood now. 

“Keep your mouth shut.”  She whispered as she got closer.  She kissed his mouth.  And he moaned in infuriated desire as he kept his mouth shut.  She licked his lips and passionately kissed his closed mouth. 

But he couldn’t help himself and he kissed her back, their tongues embracing for a moment before she stopped, took the candle and poured wax on him.

“OK! OK! I get it!”  He cried out in pain as she bit his other inner thigh.  “Alright.”  He closed his mouth and watched her with lust and rage in his eyes. 

“Good boy.”  She rewarded him by slowly unbuttoning her shirt and removing it.  Now she wore her skirt, her singlet and her bra.  He groaned through his closed lips as he watched her throw the shirt across is room. 

“You can open your mouth now.”  She said kindly, “but don’t speak unless I tell you to.”  He nodded and let his lips part slightly as his eyes drank her in.  He groaned, almost aggressively as she kissed his neck, pulling on his bindings slightly.  She snaked back down his body, her eyes locked on his and took his cock back into her mouth.  He gave a shaky groan.  She took him deep into her throat again and slowly sucked the full length of him.

“Talk.”  She said softly as she pulled back slightly to look at him.

“You’re fucking killing me.”  He groaned and she wrapped her tongue around the head of his cock.  He pulled on the restraints, wanting to plunge his fingers in her hair.  She chuckled throatily and sat up. 

“Good boy.”  She bit her bottom lip as she slowly took her singlet off.  “Talk.”  She commanded again.

“You’re so fucking sexy.”  He marvelled, his hands twitching to touch her.  He’d made himself keep his hands above his head before, had resisted the urge to touch her while she sucked his cock.  It had been a delicious experience.  But this was entirely different.  Now he couldn’t touch her; he couldn’t just choose to start touching her again when it got too much to bear.  His hands twitched and he pulled on his bindings, as he watched her run her hands over her own body.  He pulled harder on the ties wondering how the hell she’d tied them so good.  He was desperate to touch her.  He groaned as she sat at the end of the bed, propping a pillow between her back and the high, wooden footrest.  She was so perfect right now.  Bra and short denim skirt, her hair high on her head, the red lipstick slightly smudged.  He looked down at himself, his chest coated with wax, his throbbing cock covered with that red lipstick.  A tiny whimper of desired escaped him as she spread her legs slowly, revealing her beautiful cunt.  He looked at it and sighed longingly, his hands twitching again.  She rested her arms on her bent knees, her legs parted, a smile on her face as Finn stared at her. 

“Good view?”  She asked and he nodded his head slowly.

“Very.”  He made himself look away from her cunt so he could see the look on her face.  It was the first time he’d seen her look shy since this had begun.  Shy but determined.  She locked eyes with him and slowly let her hands fall between her thighs, her fingertips finding her clitoris.  Finn whimpered as he realised what she was going to do.  He pulled on his constraints.

“You gotta let me touch you!”  He pleaded.

And she stopped.

He groaned so loud and pulled on the tights so viciously, as she crawled forward to get the candle that she almost wondered if she was pushing him too hard. 

“Alright, alright!”  He said before she’d poured it but she was not to be bargained with.  “FUCK!”  He sputtered loudly as she put the candle closer still, the wax very hot, and poured the melted wax on him.  She’d already tested this on herself, so she knew how hot it was. 

“Now be a good boy.”  She said as she saw the rage and lust building in his eyes.  It was going to be monumental when she untied him.  He forced his mouth shut and nodded.  She rewarded him by slowly taking her bra off, his eyes looked down at her breasts and he sighed desirously through clenched teeth.  Rae loved the way his hands twitched with his desire to touch her.  She rubbed her tits up against his cock and he groaned as he saw the glans poking up between them. 

“I give you permission to say words that express gratitude or admiration for me.  Nothing else.”  She said softly and Finn nodded again.

“Thank you.”  He said softly, warily, his eyes flitting to the candle.  She rubbed her tits up and down his cock revelling in the effect she was having on him.  “You’re too fucking sexy.”  He barely formed the words properly he was so taken with lust and outrage that he couldn’t just fucking touch her.  He wanted to grab those breasts and push them together around his cock.  And fuck them hard.  She was getting far too good at this torturing him business. 

She slowly sat back at the bottom of the bed and he held his breath, not wanting to say anything in case he ruined it and the wax was administered.  She spread her legs again and he looked back down at her pussy, glistening with moisture.  There was no shyness now, she caressed her cunt slowly her eyes on his as he watched intently.  She let out a soft sigh as she traced around her clitoris slowly.  He sighed in response, his eyes unable to look away, his breath deep and slow, his mouth open with desire 

“The first time I did this.”  She said softly, her finger starting to rub her clitoris slowly.  “The centurion, told me that he must have me.”  She smiled as she saw Finn’s face, his whole body tense with desire for her. 

“You fucking dirty tease.  I must have you.”  He breathed, afraid he’d said too much and be punished, but part of him wanted it too.  She let out a soft chuckle and slid a finger inside of her wet pussy.

“Oh fucking hell.”  He whispered and shook his head, ready to beg to be allowed to touch her, to taste her.  But he stopped himself, his hands twitching and straining on the knots around his wrists. 

“You’ve been thinking about it since I told you haven’t you?”  She asked innocently.

“Aye.”  Finn licked his lips, thinking about eating that beautiful cunt that she was so expertly fingering.  His whole body yearned for her, his cock felt like it was alight with fire and electricity and rage.  He was enraged with desire for her.  He pulled aggressively on the restraints.  He watched her as she pleasured herself, ignoring him now, groaning slightly as she sped up, her fingers massaging her clitoris perfectly.  She turned her eyes to Finn as she let her other hand travel from her pussy up her body to cup one of breasts. 

“Oh my fucking god.”  Finn could barely believe the look in her eyes as she stared at him, masturbating.  He stopped pulling on the restraints and drank every single millimetre of her in, committing this moment to memory. 

“The first time I came.”  She said, obviously close to orgasm, her eyes penetrating him, “I was thinking about you.”  Her breath started to speed up, “now… when I cum…”  Her body started to shake and her breath came in short ragged gasps.  Finn watched, his balls aching to cum as he watched her make herself orgasm, still thinking about him, watching him.  She finished coming, her breath slowly returning to normal.  She got up and sat on the bed.

“Keep your mouth closed.”  Her voice was still raw with orgasm and he winced with desire that was burning in his veins.  He closed his mouth and she put her fingers under his nose.  He took a deep breath, smelling her cunt, her cum on her fingers and groaned deeply.  She traced his lips, leaving her juices on his mouth.  His eyes were furious, lusty, predatory.  His mouth twitched but he didn’t open his mouth as she let her fingers linger on his lips.  She drank in that predatory look.  She’d only seen it in him one other time; just before she’d told him that her period was over.  Now she had him at that place again, where he was worried he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.  And she had him tied up.  Time to push even harder.  She grinned sadistically and slowly stripped her skirt off.

“Good boy.”  She told him as he whimpered with the effort of keeping his mouth shut.  “Lick your lips.”  Before she’d even finished the sentence he was licking is lips, his eyes closed, imagining that he was licking her.  When he opened his eyes, it was obvious that his predatory instincts were taking over.  Rae smiled as she watched his eyes follow her as she crossed the room for no reason other than to watch him watching her.  He was silent, still, like a leopard ready to launch himself at her.  Again, the worry that she was pushing too hard crossed her mind, but the tenseness in his body, the taught skin of his erect cock, the desire in his eyes convinced her otherwise.  She saw a towel on the floor and picked it up, making sure to show him her arse as she bent.  He didn’t groan.  His eyes burned with more desire, his focussed tightened.  She used the towel to wipe the wax off him and he watched her, internally wincing as the wax pulled on his hairs but far too focussed on his prey to even fully notice the pain.  She grabbed the bottle of vodka she’d left on the floor she poured some on his stomach and was rewarded by a return of his groan.  But it was different.  It wasn’t filled with just desire, there was a warning in it now.  Warning her of the things he was gonna do to her when he was untied.  Rae felt her cunt start to really ache for him.  Up until then everything had been all aimed at getting him so turned on he was fucking crazy for her.  And now that he was, she was desperate to let him fuck her.  But she made herself hold her ground.  He wasn’t nearly desirous or predatory enough yet.  She licked the vodka off his stomach and a groan, starting deep in his stomach greeted her ears.  It sounded like a lion warning off an interloper.  He was warning her that the more she pushed the more ferocious he’d become.  She laughed and his eyes opened wide in fury and craving for her.  She definitely felt like she was a deer of some sort and he was on the prowl, his eyes followed her every move.  She took his cock into her mouth again and his body tensed even more, his breath shortening, that deep warning groan that was almost a growl. 

“Talk.”  She whispered.  He didn’t say anything just kept his eyes on her and she reached for the candle.  A strange smile crept over his face as she held it up.  She poured the wax on him and he exhaled in pain, his whole body gasping, his eyes never leaving hers as he opened his mouth in pain and pleasure.

“You don’t wanna untie me.”  He threatened, still trying to contain himself.

“Not yet anyway.”  And she saw that he understood her now.  She wanted him to lose it completely.  She didn’t wait for full understanding to come to him before she knelt above him, her pussy near his mouth.

“Keep your closed.”  She gently rubbed her cunt against his closed mouth and saw the real pleasure in his eyes as he realised that he was allowed to lose himself in this.  She grabbed the vodka from the side.

“Drink.”  She said as she poured the vodka down her body.  He opened his mouth and drank the vodka.  “Eat me.”  She gasped as his whole mouth devoured her cunt.  She closed the vodka bottle and rolled it away.  She didn’t want him drunk, that was no good for what she did want.  She ground her pussy into his face and saw him pulling on the restraints as he licked her mercilessly, her body shaking with the force of his mouth on her.  She held the bedhead to brace herself and noticed the tights starting to tear, saw his muscles straining as he pulled on them.  She came loudly, watching him desperately trying to get at her with his hands. 

She stood up, her legs shaky. 

“When you break through those bonds.”  She said softly.  “I don’t want you to hold back.”  She ran her hands up her body, “I want you to hurt me while you make me cum.”  She watched him pulling at his restraints more, his whole body tense.  “All things you think I’m too precious to do to me.  The things you apologised for before, in Sutherland.  I want that.  And more.  Harder.  Rougher.”  She saw that the tights wouldn’t hold for much longer, “I don’t want it to hurt too much.”  She tried to temper the look in his eyes that was starting to frighten her a little, “but I expect to hurt a little.  I want it to.” 

There was a tearing sound as the tights gave away, all the way to the top elastic band.  Rae picked up the scissors she’d had in her stash of things beside the bed and cut his ankle restraints. 

“Come get me.”  She ordered as she tossed the scissors away.  With his legs Free Finn was up, kneeling on the bed and able to throw his weight behind getting free.  She watched the muscles in his body work as he reefed at his restraints and they finally tore completely.  And he was on her, the tights still attached to his wrists tightly, torn down the middle, trailing on the floor, He spun her around and pushed her down, grabbing hold of her hair as he did, he entered her from behind and fucked her hard, his hand holding a big fistful of her hair as leverage.  She gasped as he grabbed one of her wrists, hard, and twisted her arm up behind her back, pushing her down onto the bed.   She lay prone, pinned beneath him, one hand beneath her, the other twisted behind her as he straddled her thighs and pounded into her cunt so hard her whole body moved with each jarring thrust.  When he got close to coming he stopped himself, and jumped up, pulling her up by the hair, so that she was standing in front of him.

“Alright girl?”  He looked at her momentarily, a hint of worried Finn behind the predator.

“Just do it.”  She said joyously, “use me!”  She pleaded.  “I’ll say no if…” But he was pushing her onto her knees and she opened her mouth, ready.  He held her head in place and thrust into her mouth, groaning a deep satisfied moan.  She gagged and he didn’t stop.  Normally he did.  She felt her insides tingling excitedly.  This is what she’d wanted, for him to stop fretting about her being fragile when they were playing rough.  He held himself inside of her throat, and she felt herself desperate for air so she raked her nails along his calf and he hissed in pain, letting her breathe.  He looked back at the blood on his calf and gave her an admiring look.

“Next time you draw blood, I’ll give you a slap.”  He warned.  She raked her nail viciously across his other calf and he pulled her up buy the hair, she cried out in pain, but he didn’t stop as he flung her onto the bed and smacked her arse hard.  She laughed.

“Call that a slap?’  She goaded him trying to get her nails on him again.  He put a knee in her back to hold her down and slapped her arse harder.  Rae felt her cunt tingling with pleasure.  In Sutherland she’d had a small taste of what spanking did to her, and a few times since then he’d tapped her gently on the arse.  But she’d wanted more for some time.  She wormed her hand back and found his foot, she scratched the top of it as hard as she could, bending her nails back painfully.

“AH!”  He called out in pain and looked at her in disbelief, saw the way her teeth were gritted in determination.

“Don’t hold back!”  She ordered him.

“Alright then girl.”  He marvelled as he raised his hand higher, watching her looking at him over her shoulder.  He brought his hand down with a shuddering force on the roundest part of the left cheek of her arse and she cried out loudly with pain and pleasure, a wholly singular experience for both of them.  He did it with the same force on her right cheek and was rewarded with the same cry.

“Harder.”  She gasped.  And he obliged happily, hearing her starting to groan as if she were being penetrated.  He spanked her again, her arse now a rosy red colour.  He had to have her.  He got up and rolled her over roughly before pulling her to the edge of the bed.  She loved the way he manhandled her and laid back, feeling her arse burning from the slaps.  He knelt on the floor between her thighs and thrust into her as she laid on the bed, her hands above her head, her back arched.  He grabbed her legs and pushed them up, forcing her knees towards her chest and Rae gasped loudly; this slight change in position completely changed the way he felt inside of her.  It was more intense he felt even bigger inside of her and she very quickly starting screaming out his name as she came.  He knew he was getting close so he stopped fucking her and straddled her, fucking her tits, his hands squeezing them together brutally. 

“I wanna cum all over you.”  He said to her. 

“Do it.”  She could barely breathe.  He pulled her head up and fucked her mouth.

“I’m gonna.”  He answered as if it was never in question.  He closed his eyes as he started to come, then opened them to watch as he came into her mouth.  “Show me.”  She opened her mouth and he grinned at the huge load he’d left in her mouth.  “Swallow it.”  He ordered and she did, showing him her empty mouth before sucking is cock again and he groaned as he pulled away and laid on the bed. 

“Come on.”  He motioned for her to get on top and she did, he slid back into her and she rode him watching the normal Finn and predator Finn fighting for expression in his eyes.  She didn’t want this rough sex to end.  She tried to think of something to get him riled up again.  She grinned sadistically as she thought of something, and he looked at her quizzically. 

“Sorry.”  She said in an entirely unapologetic voice.  She raised her hand and slapped his face hard.  He looked at her stunned, “don’t soften up now.”  He gritted his teeth at her.

“Bitch.”  He said dirtily. 

“Oh I love it when you talk dirty.”  She breathed, somehow turned on so much by him calling her that.  He leaned up and kissed her roughly, biting her bottom lip hard before he pushed her off him. 

“Bend over.”  He ordered as he got up, his face still stinging.  He ran the head of his cock down her crack and for a moment Rae felt him pressing against her anus and panicked, but it passed and he was sliding into her cunt.  That moment of fear had been delicious and she came almost immediately, riding the fear into pleasure.  He grabbed both of her arms and pinned her down again fucking her brutally hard, she gasped delightedly coming again, her legs feeling like jelly.  He was breathing raggedly having fucked until he was exhausted, feeling her convulse and shake beneath him, but not counting orgasms this time, this time he was only thinking of building his own orgasm.  He registered her crying out in pleasure, but focussed on himself.  He pulled her to the edge of the bed again, enjoying fucking her that way, and she rolled over for him, raising her legs so he could plunge into her immediately.  But he didn’t, once again he slid his cock along her crack, pushing at her anus for a moment, seeing the fear in her eyes and grinning sadistically he lingered for a moment before he continued to his intended destination.  She saw that he had been teasing and she slapped his arm hard, he laughed as he thrust into her hard, watching the orgasm rapidly build, once again riding on the fear.  He reached up and grabbed her tits hard, squeezing them together as he fucked her.  She arched her back and raked her nails up his back.  He pulled out and jerked his cock a few times, spraying a huge wad of cum all over her body that surprised him.  Looked at him, utterly exhausted but glowing with pleasure and scooped the cum that had landed on her face into her mouth.  He scooped some of the cum that had landed on her breasts onto his fingertips and she sucked his fingers eagerly.  He groaned throatily. 

“Fuck I don’t think I got the energy to go again.”  He said as he watched her scoop some more from her breasts into her mouth.  He took some from her stomach and she licked it from his fingers like it was chocolate sauce. 

“Jesus Christ Rae, I’m gonna have to have you again.”  She sucked his fingers lean and looked up at him.

“Is that even possible?”  She asked.

“I didn’t think twice were possible.”  He grinned, “But you proved that wrong.”  He touched her face and leaned in to kiss her, tasting his cum on her lips and tongue again, making him groan.  He sat on the bed. “I think I’m too exhausted.”  He laughed, even as his cock started to perk back up a little. 

“We’ve got until Monday by ourselves.”  She said softly, “we can do this again.”  She grinned.  Finn inhaled with a slight hiss. 

“Oh Rae.”  He shook his head, “After that, I gotta make love to you a couple o’ times to feel right.”  He shook his head.  “Sorry I hit you so hard.”

“No more sorry’s.”  She said sternly, “I wanted it!”  She said truthfully, “turns out, I like the rough stuff a little.”  She grinned, her face reddening slightly.  Finn sat back a little to take her in.

“Alright.”  He nodded his head, “No more sorry’s about sex.”  He looked at her beautiful face, “but that were pretty rough.  You sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah.”  She reassured him, “I came like 40 fucking times!”  He gave her a sceptical, “ok, I lost track, but I’m sure you got into double figures.”  He grinned, satisfied.  “You alright?”  She saw blood under nails and winced on his behalf. 

“Aye.  More than alright.”  He scratched his head in thought, “but…” he licked his lips and looked at her, “but I do want to keep a balance you know, making love and fucking… and this stuff… this fucking you like a dirty whore.  Not too often, you know?” 

“A dirty whore?”  Rae asked laughing.

“Aye.  That’s how I fucked you.”

“That was more like a perfectly clean whore.”

“Oh right?”  He chuckled dirtily, “rougher next time then?”

“Yes.”  Rae commanded firmly. 

“Alright.”  He grinned smuttily, “You are too sexy Rae.  And wonderfully perverted” 

“We’re a good match then.”  They stared at each other, his hand going to hers. 

“What are you gonna do when I tie you up like that and do that to you?”  He asked with a cocky grin.

“Enjoy it.”  She said with lusty face that made his insides sing.  He felt his love for her surging upwards, she was just unlike anyone he’d ever known.  She always kept him guessing.  She was so exciting. 

He bit the inside of his mouth for a moment.

“But not too often, I never want you to think that this is… I dunno… normal or… what I think about you… or…” he made the face he always made when he knew he was being inarticulate.  Rae waited for him, “You’re precious to me and I like treating you like that.”  He said finally.

“I know.”  She answered.

“Good.  Don’t forget it.”

“You won’t let me.”  She kissed his lips tenderly and he caressed her face softly.  “And I agree with you about the rough sex not being too often.”  She told him.  “I like how close we feel when we make love.  It’s still my favourite.”  He made a relieved sound as she knew he would.  He was such a softy really.  But the predator in him needed an airing occasionally, and she’d be more than happy to help him out with that. 

“We both have a part of us that likes to fuck hard sometimes,” She said simply, “let’s not worry about that.  It’s not really an issue is it?  We both think the same way about this stuff.”  He stroked her hair grinning stupidly.  “I wanna explore and do all sorts of things with you.”  She stroked his face, “but none of it will ever beat just… being close to you.”  She said with a real vulnerability, wanting to tell him she loved him, but not feeling brave enough to say it.  “Nothing’s better than making love with you.” 

“You’re right; nothing’s better.”  He held her to him and kissed her lips softly.  “I gotta stop making an issue out of nothing.”  He grinned.  “I just worry about you.”

“I promise I will tell you if I’m not alright with what you do.  Just try it, we’ll see how it goes.” 

“Sometimes I worry that what I want is too much.”

“Oh yeah like what?”

“Alright, like the fear in your eyes when I got close to…” He nodded her head and she understood what he meant.

“I’m not ready for that.”  She acknowledged.  “But now that I know for sure that it’s something you want to do...”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t need to.”  She said reassuringly.

“I’m not trying to pressure you.”

“And you’re not.”  She said firmly, slightly frustrated with him.  “Just want what you want, and we’ll deal with it.”  She ordered and he nodded slowly, “and as for… anal.” She shook her head, not understanding why he’d want it.  He recognised what she was thinking.  He wanted to say that he was sorry, but knew she didn’t want that from him.

“You just got such a sexy arse.”  He explained and she grinned begrudgingly at him.  “And I mean it when I say it doesn’t matter if you don’t want to.  I am more than satisfied with everything else.”  He tried to read her expression, “You believe me?”

“Yeah alright.”

“Cos I mean it.” 

“If I ever feel like I can do it… I will tell you.”

“You’re still worried that I’ll find you boring aren’t you?”  He asked astutely and she nodded.  “Don’t ever think that again.”  He answered immutably, “If we were to have sex in the same position and nothing else for the rest of our lives, I wouldn’t get bored of it.”  He smiled at her honestly, “so I’m officially putting anal sex off the books.”  He declared, “Not gonna happen ever.”  She watched his face closely, “look at that, I don’t care one bit.”  He grinned, “Alright girl?”

“Alright.”  She kissed him and he raised a hand to her face.  His fingertips were a little cold and she noticed her tights still attached to his wrists and she laughed guiltily as she gently untied the tights.  There were deep welts around his wrists from the tightness of them and the pulling on them he’d done. 

“Oh shit.”  She said as she gently caressed the welts.  “You’re gonna have to leave marks on me one day or I’ll forever feel guilty.”  She said as she noticed the redness on his chest from the wax.  He pulled a slight face, one tinged with guilt.  “What?”

“I did.”  He answered guiltily, and stood up and offered her his hand.  They walked, hand in hand to the bathroom, Rae knowing he was going to use the mirror to show her. 

When she looked over her shoulder at the small bruise rising on her arse cheek, just the left one, she laughed. 

“Have you seen your back?”  Finn looked at the scratch marks down his back and then on his calves.

“You’re a vicious harpy.”  He chuckled and she laughed at him as she turned the shower on.  “I really can’t judge Archie can I?”  He looked at her red arse, the bruise deepening in colour before his eyes. 

“You saw the bruises then?”

“Aye.”  He said as he checked the water temperature.  “Takes so fucking long.”  He complained about the shower’s heating up capabilities.

“I were worried too.  But I think sex is just… it’s what it is, you know?”  She shrugged, “people like all sorts o’ things.”  She closed the bathroom door and turned to him, “to be honest, when I were a virgin, I never thought I’d like half the stuff I like.”  She felt the water and groaned at how cold it still was. 

“Aye.”  Finn agreed, “I never thought I’d pull a girl’s hair.  Least of all the girl I-” He stopped, their eyes meeting.  She knew he’d nearly said it.  His mouth moved slightly, and she could see his mind working things over.  She wondered if she should prod him, try to make him say it.  She saw a strange look come over his face and wished she could read his mind.  He lowered his eyes slightly, looking at her mouth.  She licked her lips and he leaned in and kissed her, slowly, softly, but deeply.  His fingers travelled up her chest and touched the necklace around her neck and she saw that look in his eyes as he looked down at it and then back up at her. 

“The girl I care about so much.”  He slowly, clearly emotional, and she saw that he was disappointed with himself, she knew that look, but there was something else; fear perhaps?  A waft of steam rose from the shower and Finn took a deep breath as he turned to put his hand under the hot water. 

“It’s ready.”  He said in a small voice. 

Rae touched his face, wanting to tell him she loved him, but she was afraid too.  What if she was reading all the signs wrong?  She wanted to reassure him, to tell him she understood that fear, that he could take as long as he needed to say those words.

Instead she kissed him, as disappointed in herself as he was in himself.  But he smiled happily and put his hands on her hips.

“My girl.”  He said fondly as he looked at her, “smart and beautiful and funny and sexy.   And a perverted wench.”  She laughed and got in the shower.  He joined her, already thinking about what he’d cook her for dinner. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Higher’ by D’Angelo _

 

Archie looked around nervously and took a sip of the wine.  Tom smiled winningly at him and Archie grinned back. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever been to a place so posh.”  Archie looked down at the menu.  “I don’t know what half of this stuff is.”  He picked a random thing from the menu “Rabbit, sage and porcini sausage, soft polenta fontina, enoki and tarragon…” he looked up at Tom tragically quizzical. 

“Have you seen the pomme poofs.”  He grinned in reply.  Archie looked through the menu.

“With beef cheek?”  Archie pulled a face.

“I’ve gotta get it.”  Tom said chuckling, “it’s got poofs in it!”  Archie started to laugh at him. 

“I do like a bit o’ poof.”  Archie agreed.

“Right, so I’m getting poofs.  What are you getting?”  Tom asked, his eyes sparkling in the candle light.

“I think I might get…”  Archie tried to find something that sounded like something he might eat “the… Sous vide lamb rump, carrot purée, olive jam, french lentils and quinoa tabouli, pomme fondant.”  Tom watched him say the whole thing with a huge grin on his face.  “What?”  Archie asked self-consciously.

“Just say the lamb when the waiter comes.” 

“Oh right.”  Archie laughed taking another gulp of the wine.  “It’s really sweet.”  He said and looked at the deep golden wine.

“It’s my favourite wine.”  Tom said, “It’s called De Bortelli, Noble One, Botrytis Semillon.” 

“Sounds expensive.”  Archie replied.

“Middle range expense.  But top range quality.  I import it from overseas so it costs me a bit more than it should.”  He shrugged and took a sip, “Wine snobs will tell you that you can’t have a sticky with your main, but they’re wrong.”

“I like it.”  He looked over at the two bottles of it Tom had brought with him.  The waiter came over and Tom ordered oysters for both of them as an entrée then the beef.  He looked over at Archie, smiled fondly and looked up at the waiter and ordered the lamb for him.  As the waiter walked away Tom looked back at Archie and sighed happily.

“Well it’s official now.”  He said as if some big terrible news had been let out of the bag.

“Official?”  Archie felt totally out of his depth tonight.

“I ordered food for you.  That makes you my boyfriend.”  He grinned, “Can’t back out of it now.”  He teased.  Archie felt his stomach clench with joy, he lowered his eyes a huge smile on his face. 

“Damnit.”  He joked, “Well I guess I’m stuck with you then.”  He looked up and Tom grazed the back of his hand down Archie’s cheek gently.  Archie heard some mumbling from the next table and he started to turn his face to them but Tom gently stopped him.

“Ignore them.”  He smiled sadly.  “This night is about us.”  He took a sip of wine, “and our new relationship.”  His smile went from sad to genuinely happy as he raised his glass and Archie raised his, they clinked them and both took a sip. 

“So Archie, how was your day?”  Tom asked.

“S’alright.”  Archie thought, “got a B on me performing arts essay, which is about what I expected.  What?”  Archie looked at the expression on Tom’s face.

“Sometimes I forget that you’re still at school.”  He shook his head, “Am I crazy to be going out with you?”

“No.”  Archie answered simply.  Tom nodded, wanting to be convinced.  “And the rest of the day was a bit o’ the same old.”  Archie continued determinedly.  “You?”

“Well I did me personal training stuff in the morning.”  He sighed, “Then I went into the office.”

“What is your other job?”  Archie laughed and Tom shook his head.

“We know so little about each other.”  He sighed, “I do software engineering part time and some freelance opinion pieces for local papers.”

“And the personal training.”  Tom nodded in response.  “Well I just have a part time job at the fitness centre.”  Archie laughed, “It’s very fulfilling.  And I feel it helps me grow as a person and furthers my career.”  Tom laughed

“What do you want to do… you know after…” Tom paused, “school.” He said that word slowly, still not sure about the age difference. 

“I’m thinking something in history.  Teacher maybe.” 

“Oh, you’d be an excellent teacher.”  Tom’s hands moved as he talked and Archie found himself watching them sometimes.  “You’ve got the right temperament.  You’re very patient.  And kind.”  Tom finished with a supportive smile. 

“I dunno about all o’ that.  I do know I like to bang on about history though.”  Archie blushed.  Tom reached forward and took his hand. 

“Tell me about history.”  He said with a smile that made Archie get butterflies in his stomach.

“Alright.  Which bit.”

“Your favourite bit.”

When the oysters came 10 minutes later Tom was still watching Archie talk.  Archie looked up at the waiter, embarrassed by how much he’d talked. 

“Sorry about that.”  He grinned as the waiter walked away.

“No I liked hearing you talk.”  Tom replied and looked down at the oysters, “now have you ever had oysters?”

“No.”  Archie looked at them with a worried face. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll show you what to do!”  Tom laughed as he picked up his fork.

“And you have to tell me all about software engineering.”  Archie said earnestly,

“Yeah but I wanna hear it, whether it is or no.”  Archie picked up his fork, “you me boyfriend, it’s me job to listen to you.” 

“Well then you shall have to hear all about it!”  He laughed as he picked up an oyster.  Archie watched him eat the oyster, using the fork to slide it into his mouth from the shell.  He tried one himself and was taken aback by how strong the flavour was.  Tom laughed at the expression on his face as Archie swallowed it slowly.

“Are you alright?”  Tom chuckled.

“I do not know.”  Archie took a sip from the water that the waiter kept topped up. 

“Some people say that they’re an acquired taste.”  Tom explained.

“Well I better acquire it then.”  Archie tried another and pulled a face, making a disgusted sound.  Tom laughed and ate his happily, loving their saltiness. 

“Maybe they’re not for you?”  He was laughing so hard at the faces Archie was pulling that other patrons were looking over. 

“How many do I have to eat?”

“Six.” 

“How many have I eaten?”

“Four.”

“Oh fuck.”  Archie gulped the rest of his wine down and the waiter came immediately to top up his wine.  Archie took a big sip of that too.

“Don’t get too drunk, I wanna fuck tonight!”  Tom laughed, the waiter flushing slightly before he left without comment. 

“Alright!”  Archie gasped, “Two more.  I can do it!”  They both laughed uproariously and Tom reached out to take Archie hand as he put another oyster to his mouth.  He made a disgusted sound and swallowed it down.

“Do you want me to have the last one?”  Tom asked.

“No way!”  Archie laughed, “If you can do it - I can do it.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘#1 Crush’ by Garbage _

 

Finn sat down for lunch at the usual table feeling a little worried.  He’d gone to Rae’s usual classroom but no one had been in there.  He knew that the class had probably gone to the labs, or outside to look at bugs or something.  He knew she was probably fine, especially on school property but he worried nonetheless.  He thought back to the weekend they had just shared at his place.  It had been like Sutherland again, a weekend of exploration, fucking, lovemaking, but also talking this time.  But perhaps his favourite moment had been when she’d asked him to teach her how to cook.  He didn’t know why, but he was filled with a sense of pride that she would ask him to teach her.  He had quite solemnly agreed to teach her and she had giggled, thinking he was silly to take it so seriously.  That’s another thing he loved about her, sometimes she really had no idea what she did to him. 

He felt like an entirely different person to the one that had met her for the first time all those months ago.  He’d been wanting to change then, he just didn’t know what in to.  Now he did.  He wanted to be her man.  There was no one else he wanted to be.  There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her.  The absolute depth of that truth shook him to his core.  If she asked him to kill for her, he would.  If she asked him to steal, to harm others, to do anything, he would. 

“What does a man do that he doesn’t do for her?”  Finn said softly to himself, completely at peace with this understanding.  “Nothing.”  He answered his own question; because everything was for her. 

“Talking to yourself?”  Archie sat down across from him.

“Aye, I’m afraid so.”

“What about?”  Archie started to sort through his bag looking for his lunch.

“Being in love.”  Finn replied and Archie looked up, instantly thinking about the conversation he’d had with Rae.

“In love?”  Archie prodded.

“Aye.”  Finn answered with a huge happy smile. 

“D’you find a new band you like?”  Archie prodded again.  Finn gave him a look that implied he thought Archie was an idiot.

“Rae o’ course.”  He shook his head at Archie.

“Oh of course.  So she knows how much you love her then?”  Archie made no attempt at trying to be subtle.  But it didn’t matter because the girls were heading over.

“Has she said something to you?”  Finn asked, his brow furrowed in concern and frustration. 

“Nope.”  Archie lied, using a voice that clearly denoted that she had said something.  It was his way of keeping Rae’s privacy while kicking his best mate up the arse. 

“I just wanna say it at the right time.”  Finn hissed as the girls got closer.

“Oh right?”  Archie answered sceptically.  Finn clearly wanted to say more but Izzy was slowly sitting down at the bench.  Finn and Archie hadn’t said a word about the short haircut mainly because everyone else at school had.  Rae sat down next to Finn, gifting him with a loving kiss before turning to talk to Chloe as she sat down, clearly continuing a conversation.  Finn smiled at the girls chatting and then gave a scowl to Archie who shrugged.  He turned his eyes to scan the area.  It was a habit he’d gotten into with the whole stalker problem.  He was always looking to see if someone was watching. 

He didn’t see anyone watching, but he did see someone walking across the field.

The minute he saw that form, the rage that he had compartmentalised into a tiny little box in the centre of his guts exploded out of him.  He leapt over the table, Chloe and Izzy yelping with surprise as he dove between them, food and drinks flying everywhere, and ran, full out at the person he’d seen. 

Rae, stunned, looked to see what was happening and saw Liam walking across the field. 

“Oh fuck!”  Archie said and got up, running after him.  Rae jumped up and ran too. 

Finn crash tackled him and before they’d even properly hit the ground was thumping him in the face.

“Holy shit!”  Chloe breathed as she saw Finn tackle Liam.  She turned to Izzy.

“Go.”  Izzy said, and knowing she couldn’t get there on time, “without me!”  She added, and Chloe turned and sprinted off across the field. 

Archie got there and pulled Finn off Liam, yelling that he’d get expelled.  Finn struggled out of Archie’s grasp and Liam scrambled to his feet, his mouth and nose bleeding.  Liam thumped Archie, sending him stumbling back.

“Stay out of it!”  He yelled as Archie straightened up, his hand on his mouth, his lip spilt.  “You and me then.”  Liam said to Finn.  “So you know what I did to her then.”  He wiped his hand across his nose.  But Finn was in no mood for talking; he hooked a crushing punch into Liam’s jaw, and followed it up with another hook from the other side. 

“STOP!”  Rae screamed as she got to them, getting in between of Liam and Finn.  Finn dropped his eyes to her and backed up.  “Don’t do this Finn.”  She said urgently and his eyes focussed on her, he started to nod, he would calm down for her.  But Liam put his hand on her and pushed her aside roughly.

“Not now Rae.”  Liam said and used her as a distraction to jab Finn square in the face.  Rae fell to the ground, hurting her wrist, she cried out.  Chloe finally got there and pushed Liam hard as Finn was still reeling back from the punch.  Rae’s cry of pain made Finn’s rage go from hot to cold.

“What are you doing?”  Chloe screamed at Liam.  Archie grabbed Chloe and pulled her out of the way, they both stumbled to the ground.

“I’ll do it.”  He said to her, but Finn had tackled Liam to the ground again.

“You don’t touch her!”  Finn‘s voice was almost calm as he spoke to Liam and slammed his fists into him, precisely picking he spots to cause maximum damage.  Archie once again dragged Finn off Liam.  Who got up slower, shaking his head slowly to clear it.  Liam raised his fists, ready to keep fighting.  Rae scrambled up and went to try to stop Finn again, but Liam had let lose a crunching blow that connected with the back of her head, knocking her down to the ground.  Finn watched her fall and instantly fell to his knees beside her.  Liam looked down stunned.

“I didn’t…” he said softly, “I didn’t mean to hit her.”  Chloe crawled over to Rae, crying frantically, and stroked the hair out of her face as Finn gently lifted her upper body into his arms.  Archie looked down at Rae and then up at Liam.

“Get out of here.”  Archie ordered him. 

“Is she alright?”  Liam asked, terrified of what he’d done.  He stepped forward, but Archie stepped up to him.

“Get the fuck away from us.”  Liam wrapped his arms around his waist, his body aching from the beating he’d had, his face broken and bleeding. 

“I just wanna know if she’s ok?”

“You don’t come near her again.”  Archie continued while behind him Finn and Chloe were frantically saying Rae’s name.

“Get help.”  Finn said to Chloe.  Chloe jumped up and sprinted back to the school buildings.  She saw that Izzy had already started back to the buildings for that very purpose, having seen it all play out. 

Liam looked over Archie’s shoulder to Finn, cradling an unconscious Rae.

“Finn.”  Liam said, “You know what it’s like to be in love, like me.  Is she alright?”  Archie kept himself between Finn and Liam.  Finn’s face was unreadable as he looked up, but refused to look at Liam.  When Archie looked over his shoulder at his best friend, he knew that the over-riding emotion he felt was pure loathing.

“No I don’t know what it’s like to love like you do.”  Finn said as if any words spoken to Liam tasted like poison in his mouth.  “Cos I would never do what you’ve done to someone you claim to love.”  Finn looked back down at Rae.

“Just tell me she’s ok?”

“Get out of here!”  Archie yelled, “You don’t love Rae, you’re just obsessed with her.”

“Fuck.”  Liam said as he tried to look at her, tears in his eyes.  Archie pushed him.  “Fuck off!” 

“I’m sorry Rae.”  He said looking at her unconscious form, before he turned and walked away.  Archie kept his eyes on him.

“Let me tell the story when the teachers get here.”  Archie said to Finn, who barely heard him.

“Rae girl.  I’m so sorry.  I’m sorry baby.”  He whispered to her.  “You gotta open your eyes now.  Come on Rae, I love you, you gotta be alright.”  He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead, “Come on Rae.  I’m sorry I used me fists again.  Please.”  He pleaded. 

Archie watched Liam pass through the gate and get into his car, screeching the tyres as he pulled away.  He turned to Finn and knelt, checking Rae’s pulse. 

“Heart’s still beating mate.”  Archie said and he saw some teachers, Elsa at the front with Mr Ken Roach, who knew first aid heading out across the field at a run.  He knew that an ambulance would have already been called and he looked back down at Rae and saw tears on Finn’s cheeks.  He rarely saw Finn cry.

“Please Rae.”  He said softly to her and her eyes opened slowly.  He breathed out slowly, a soft sound of relief scratching at his vocal chords as he saw her trying to focus.  She tried to move and felt nauseous.  Her hands shot to her stomach as she felt like she might vomit. 

“What happened?”  She asked as Elsa slammed to her knees beside them.  Mr Roach slowly knelt beside her and looked at Rae, her pupils were huge and she clearly couldn’t focus properly. 

“How hard was the knock to the head?”  He asked with authority as Elsa took Rae’s hand and felt her pulse.

“Slow and steady.”  She said and Ken nodded. 

“Some guy grabbed her.”  Archie lied, his voice shaking, as if from fear, “Finn fought him off and the guy hit her in the back of the head.”  Finn looked up at Archie as Chloe skidded up to them, panting hard, Izzy beside her nearly choking with the effort of running. 

“Is she alright?”  Izzy gasped.

“I’m fine.”  She tried to sit up again and nausea swept through her again and she fell back into Finn’s arms, he tightened his grip on her protectively. 

“Close your eyes.”  Ken ordered, and Rae did.  He counted to 20 then asked her to open them.  He saw satisfactory pupil movement, and Finn noticed that her eyes were starting to focus better.  She looked up at him. 

“My head hurts.”  She said bewildered. 

“You got punched.”  He said softly to her, “I wouldn’t want to get punched the way you got punched.”  He added.  Archie saw paramedics heading over the field, Mrs Vines leading them to the scene.  As soon as they got there everyone but Finn cleared the way and they checked her pupil response and asked some questions.

“We’ll need to report this to the police.”  Elsa said to Archie as they waited for the verdict from the paramedics. 

“Can it wait?”  He motioned to Rae.

“Of course.”  Elsa turned to look at her.

“What happened?”  One of the paramedics asked her.

“I don’t remember.”  She sounded bewildered.  

“What’s the last thing you remember?”  He continued.

“I…” She thought, “I sat down at the bench and kissed Finn.”  She said, “Then me and Chloe was talking.”

“That was maybe 5 minutes before she were hit.”  Finn answered.

“That’s relatively common.  Can you stand?”  He asked her.

“Aye.”  She said softly and Archie’s ears pricked up.  He took a deep breath to calm his nerves. 

Rae stood up slowly, with Finn’s help and swayed slightly. 

“I think I’m ok now.”  She said softly but the paramedic smiled and gently led her towards the ambulance.

“We might just do some scans.”  He said to her and Finn protectively helped her walk. 

 

 

It was several hours later that a frantic Linda put her daughter into her bed, allowing Finn to stay beside her, and brought her ice cream when she asked, even doing a bowl for Finn, even though he had asked for nothing.  He had spent the entire time quietly berating himself and doing whatever Rae asked without question.  This wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t gone after Liam. 

She still couldn’t remember what had happened, but she seemed alright overall and she was allowed to go home with some dire warnings that symptoms could take days or even months to appear and she must report to them if she had any of a long list of symptoms. 

She nestled into his arms and he stroked her hair.

“I’m so sorry girl.”  He was so ashamed. 

“I don’t know what happened Finn.”  She said sounding exhausted, “I don’t know what you’re apologising for.  And I don’t wanna know.”  She added, “Cos I already know that you’re being too hard on yourself.  You always are.” Finn stayed silent, knowing that over the weeks Rae would pick the story up from the gang, and if she wanted to talk to him about it, she would.  And if she didn’t then they’d never talk about it. 

Whatever she needed. 

 

 

 

 

_‘Just A Man’ by Faith No More_

 

Finn jumped up from the breakfast table, Aiesha in his arms and went to answer the knock on at the door.  It was Tuesday, the day after the fight with Liam, and he had skipped boxing that morning to hold Rae in the morning as she groaned about feeling sick.  Rae had decided she would go to school and Finn had gently tried to persuade her to rest for the day.  She had seemed fine after a shower and they had trudged downstairs for breakfast cooked by Karim, Linda was breastfeeding when they sat down.  Finn barely batted an eye anymore when he saw Aiesha being fed.  He’d seen it so many times now that he just didn’t register breasts that were breastfeeding as ‘breasts’ anymore.  Linda had passed Aiesha to Finn as soon as she had finished and he had sat her up, gently rubbing her back and wiping her mouth as everyone talked and busied themselves. 

Now he held her in one arm as he opened the door to see Archie at the door.  Archie took a moment to look at Finn holding the baby.

“You alright?”  He asked with a frown.

“Aye.”  Finn bounced Aiesha gently and she cooed at him happily, he made some gurgling noises at her and Archie watched on with a disbelieving face.  Rae came out to see who it was.

“Hey Arch!” 

“ ‘Morning Rae.”  He replied.  She saw the split lip Archie sported and looked back to the bruising on Finn’s cheek. 

“Still don’t remember?”  Archie noticed the look on her face.

“No, and I don’t wanna know!”  She threw up her hands, “so don’t go telling me!” 

“I actually have to talk to Finn for a moment?”  Rae shrugged and took Aiesha from him.  Finn waited for her to go back to the kitchen before he stepped out. 

“What is it?”

“Yester when that pillock drove away screeching, it made me think o’ something I forgot to tell you about the day Rae got the dead bird.”  Archie saw the interest in Finn’s eyes and continued, “The bird was thrown at the door right, and then someone screeched away in their car.”  Finn walked out onto the road instantly, Archie in tow.  He didn’t know what he was looking for but he scanned the road as he walked away from Rae house, heading the way Archie motioned. 

“I think he went round this corner.” 

“I run this way every morning that I leave her place to go to the boxing joint.”  Finn bit the inside of his mouth.

“You come back this way?”

“No I come back the long way.”  Finn pointed down to the road approaching Rae’s house from the other side, “Rhys said it good for stamina.”  He shrugged as they turned back towards Rae’s house, Finn looking at his feet. 

“D’you think it’s Liam?”

“I don’t know Arch.”  Finn said looking up and suddenly seeing that from this position, he could just see into Rae’s bedroom window.  “Fuck.”  He breathed and move closer to Archie where the view was better.  Archie looked up and averted his gaze; Rae was getting changed. 

“Jesus, with binoculars you’d be able to see every hair on her head.”  Archie realised. 

“I tell her to close that fucking curtain.”  Finn shook his head, “But she think cos she on the second storey no one will see.”  Archie took a step to the side and looked back up at the window and Finn, realising what he was doing, copied; checking to see where you could actually see into her window from.

“It’s really only this one spot.”  Finn said eventually and looked along the street.  “The one fucking bit o’ hill on the whole fucking street.”  He ran his tongue along his back teeth and shook his head. 

“I don’t know why she thinks she can’t be seen.”  Archie said, “If you can see it from your window, then someone can see you from that spot!”  Archie sounded as exasperated as Finn felt. 

“You check these two houses,” Finn pointed at the two houses they stood outside of, “and I’ll check these two,” he pointed at the next two along “see if they’ve seen any cars hanging about.”  Archie nodded and headed towards the door.  Finn knocked on his first door and no one answered.  He moved along to the next door and an elderly woman opened the door and looked at him ponderously. 

“Hi, my name’s Finn Nelson, I date Rae, across the road.”

“I know who you are.”  She said as a young man, probably Finn’s age came out.

“Who is it gran?”

“Just a neighbour, James, I’m fine.”  He gave Finn a strange look and left the room.  “I’m Mrs Dewhurst.”  She offered him a hand and he shook it gently. 

“I were just wondering if you’ve seen any cars parked around the street a lot lately?”

“There’s always cars parked around here.”  She looked imperiously at him. 

“Any more than others?”  He asked.

“Do you love Rae?”  She asked sternly.  Finn was surprised.

“Yes.”  He answered with a bemused look on his face.  She sniffed and took a deep breath.

“Alright.”  She said and poked her head out of her door, she pointed to the spot Finn and Archie had identified as prime Rae viewing territory.  “There’s often a car parked there.  Can’t tell you much about the car, I don’t like cars very much.”  She narrowed her eyes at him.  “Do you want me to keep a closer eye on it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind?”  Finn asked hopefully and then noticed a framed picture of Rae on the mantelpiece.  He furrowed his brows, bewildered to see it there. 

“I’ll leave a note with Linda if I see anything of interest young man.” 

“Thank you.”  Finn left Mrs Dewhurst’s place shaking his head, confused.  But the incongruity of seeing a picture of Rae in her house was quickly lost because he knew that the stalker was probably still watching Rae. 

“A car parks out there a lot.”  Archie reported, “not very observant people though.”

“Same.”  Finn nodded at Mrs Dewhurst’s place.  

“No description of a particular car.  But they did say they hadn’t seen it recently.  He still may have given up.”  Archie said hopefully. 

“I don’t care.  The first thing I’m gonna do is close those fucking curtains.”  They got to Rae’s door and Archie stopped, ready to leave, but instead he looked at his best friend with an appraising eye.

“You told Rae you loved her when she were out cold.”

“I know.”

“That don’t count.”

“I know.”

“If you love her so much, why won’t you tell her?”

“I wanna do it right.”  Finn said insistently.  “I don’t wanna do it after we’ve argued, or had a big discussion.  I wanna do it when everything is perfect and she knows that I’m saying it cos she the love of my life, not cos she’s upset and I’m trying to cheer her up or something.”  Archie resisted the urge to tell him he’d be waiting a long time if he waited until everything was perfect. 

“Love of your life… that’s big.”  He narrowed his eyes slightly. 

“Aye, but it’s true.  I’ll love her for the rest of me life.”

“How can you know that?”  Archie regretted those words before he’d even seen the annoyed look they elicited from Finn. 

“You know, I’ve had this talk with way too many people.”  He shook his head, “So I been thinking about it a lot.”  Finn leaned against the door and pulled out a cigarette.  “You saw that little baby girl in there right?”  Finn asked and lit his cigarette.  Archie nodded and leaned against the wall. “Everyone in that house loves that little girl.  Linda, Karim, Rae, even me.”  Finn sucked on his cigarette and tried to impress upon Archie how important what he was saying was, “If all of us said we’d love Aiesha till the day she died, no one would question it.  It’s expected even.  But we don’t know anything about Aiesha.  She spends all day drooling and shitting and not much else.  But we all love her.  Always will.”

“But you’re talking about family love there.”

“Aye but Rae is me family.”  Finn countered.  “And if I talked about loving this woman that I know inside out but who still surprises me, for the rest of me life, people suddenly question that.”

“I think it’s your age.”

“Oh aye,” he said unimpressed, “I seen a wee little 5 year old boy with a teddy bear at the chemist the other, and he was clinging to that bear and I realised that he loved it with all his tiny little being.”

“A teddy bear?”  Archie said sceptically.

“Aye.  You can’t tell me it’s not love just cos it’s not the love you’re thinking of.”  Finn answered, “that child loved more purely and more deeply than most o’ the rest o’ us do.”  Finn gesticulated as he spoke, emphasising the words.  Archie rarely saw him this animated, and realised he really still had a point to make.  “And I realised Arch, looking at this wee littlie, that we all already do love.  We all know how to do it – we’re born knowing!”  Finn willed Archie to understand, “We learn how to not do it as we get older.  How to not trust it.  To not believe in it.”  He shook his head, “the idea that you have to be certain age to know what love is, is stupid.”  He said with a slightly disgusted look at the concept, “I know what love is, we all already know what it is.  The difference is, not many of us realise that you gotta work at it, you gotta fight for it.  You gotta build a house.”  He said softly, “that’s why people think there’s an age limit on love.  But they’re wrong.  You can love at any age.  We do love at all ages.  But,” he smiled cynically, “most people also think you can only work hard at something when you’re older.  And that’s not true either.  Cos you can’t tell me Arch, that I haven’t worked for this.  For her.”

“Are you…?”  Archie licked his lips as the realisation came to him, “You’re scared of how you feel about Rae aren’t you?”  Finn looked at Archie, surprised.

“I dunno.”  He said softly.  “But…” He fought for the right words, “Sometimes it like looking at the sun.”

“Dangerous?”

“So bright, it’s painful.”  Finn corrected.  “And yeah, I guess dangerous.  Like I can’t touch it proper.”  He shrugged as if he had nothing more to say, but Archie had learned from watching Rae that staying silent often produced more words from Finn.  “It’s like, I’m so close Arch.”  He said, his eyes not focussed on what was here and now.  “And I’m terrified I’ll lose it all.”  He turned his eyes to Archie, “Cos how could I ever got back to a normal life after I’ve felt this?”  He shook his head, “Even if it is too bright for me to handle.”  He laughed nervously and looked down.  “I’ll embrace it, even if it burns me all up to nothing.”

“That sounds like love alright.”  Archie smiled sadly, “the kind of love we all dream o’ having.”

“I love that woman with everything that’s in me, Archer.  And I will love her for the rest o’ me days.”  Finn sounded more resolute than Archie had ever heard him sound,

“You’re right.”  Archie said, “I’m sorry I questioned it.”  He smiled supportively.  “I said it afore and I’ll say it again: you speak a lot more than you used to.”

“Sorry ‘bout that.”  Finn scrunched up his face. 

“I like it.”  Archie shrugged.  “She’s been good for you.” 

“Oh aye.”  Finn agreed gravely, “very much so.”

“Do I get to be best man one day?”  Archie asked suddenly.

“Not sure if she’s the marrying type!”  Finn laughed.

“I dunno!”  Archie said in a voice that implied he thought Finn was wrong.

“Alright, if it turns out that she is, then yeah, that would be…”  He nodded, his words failing him and Archie smiled understanding perfectly. 

“You’re still shite at telling people how you feel but.”  Archie noted with a laugh and Finn gave him an unimpressed look before he chuckled, acknowledging that Archie was right.  Obviously.

“By the way, Tom and me are dating now.”

“That’s good news!”  Finn clapped him on the back and Archie winced, Finn felt some worry, but stopped himself when he thought about the sex he’d had with Rae recently. 

“Don’t do it so rough that I can’t barge you in football!”  Finn joked with a genuine smile and Archie recognised that. 

“I’ll try.”  He felt that peace was restored between them; this issue Finn was having with Tom was over now. 

“And maybe you can bring him to meet the gang?”

“I suppose, in a couple o’ weeks, probably.”  Archie grinned happily and then lowered his eyes, worried, “go take care of Rae.  It’s creepy that you can see her from the road.” 

“Aye.”  He said with concern, “thanks for telling me about the car.”  Archie said goodbye and left.  Finn went inside, heading straight for the stairs; he had a curtain to close and a long, and no doubt argumentative, conversation to have with Rae. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Wild Horses’ by The Rolling Stones _

 

Izzy opened the door and smiled happily to see Chloe and Rae standing at the door.

“When you didn’t show up to school we figured we should come visit in our free.”  Chloe grinned as they sat down it he lounge room. 

“Got you a present.”  Rae grinned as she presented a lovely gift hamper to Izzy. 

“Guys!”  She grinned and started to open it.  She stopped, her jaw dropping.

“Is this…” She picked up the vibrator and looked at them.

“It’s the same sex hamper that we got for Rae.”  Chloe said.  She turned to Rae, “Well really I picked it, Izzy gave me money for it without seeing it, so this is quite a surprise for her.”  She grinned and looked back at Izzy as she pulled out some glow in the dark condoms. 

“Oh my!”  She laughed, “Use these tonight!”  Rae laughed and tried not to notice how thin Izzy looked. 

“I decided that we can’t wait for the boys to figure their shit out.  If you’re gonna have an orgasm Izzy, you gotta do it yourself.”  Rae said seriously.

“What?”  Izzy asked with a surprised grin. 

“So we got you these.”  Chloe pulled out a few books about sex and handed them to Izzy.  “There’s a good bit in there about masturbating.”  She looked at Izzy expectantly.

“Well I’m not gonna do it right now!”  She laughed and blushed.

“Well o’ course not!”  Rae giggled, “But you know, when we head back to school…”

Izzy opened one of the books to see a large picture of a vagina.

“Pretty vagina.”  Rae said and Chloe and Izzy turned their eyes to her.

“Sorry.  Janice… who you guys don’t know…”  Rae sighed, “Don’t worry.”  She shook her head, but they kept looking at her.  “Janice is an artist.”  Rae said factually.

“Oh well that explains it.”  Chloe snarked sarcastically.

“Anyway, the vibrator’s right good on your lady bits.”  Rae handed her the batteries they’d gotten.

“I dunno guys.”  Izzy said, “I kinda want me first orgasm to be with Chop.”  Chloe and Rae exchanged glances.

“We was afraid of this.”  Chloe said and looked back at Izzy, “So I’m going to tell you, that out of the… five…” Chloe edited the number down, “lovers I have had.  Only one of them made me cum.”  She turned to Rae.

“I’ve only had two.”  Rae said, “One of ‘em didn’t make me cum.”

“And the other one’s Finn!”  Izzy laughed.

“Aye!”  Rae said happily. 

“How good is he though?”  Izzy asked sceptically, “really?”

“Last night when we shagged, I came 4 times.”  Both girls turned their eyes to Rae with disbelief.

“Four times!”  Izzy exclaimed, “That hardly seems fair, give one to me!” 

“That’s not even his best effort!”  Rae laughed at their tragic faces.  But she stopped herself from revelling too much, today was not about her.  “But Finn has really gone out of his way to try and make sex really good for me.  Like he tries real hard… plus he’s got that sorta curve in his cock I told you ‘bout… just… does things…”

“Chops cock is straight.”  Izzy said with a slight frown. 

“Well whether Choppy Chop’s cocky cock is straight or curved don’t matter.”  Rae said, “If he’s not getting it done, you have to get it done yourself.”

“But it’s such a pretty cock.”  She protested and Chloe laughed.  Rae blinked at her.

“Ok.”  She said slowly, “but he’s obviously doing something wrong.”  Rae waved her hand near her groin, “despite the prettiness of the general area.” 

‘I wish Finn would just tell him what to do.”  Izzy said softly.

“I tried that.  Finn says boys don’t talk like that.”

“You told Finn?”  She asked, horrified.

“Well you just said-”

“Yeah but I weren’t serious!”  She put her hand over her mouth, “oh no, poor Chop!” 

“I wouldn’t worry; Finn’s not treating him different.”

“How d’you know that?”

“Well I told him in Sutherland.”  Rae said, “Asked him to talk to Chop, subtle like.  Nothing’s changed right?”  Izzy considered this for a moment and then let out a relieved breath.

“Alright.”  She said with a small grin, “thanks for trying.”

“What’s he doing wrong?”  Chloe turned to Izzy and Izzy shrugged.

“I dunno.”  She said, “he touches me and stuff, and it feels nice, but… I wish he’d take longer doing it.”

“Right.”  Chloe encouraged her.

“And he almost always goes down.”  She said, “I wouldn’t let him at first, I were shy.”  She blushed very slightly, “but he really wanted to so…”  She shrugged slowly, “I really, really like it... but… I want him to stay down there longer.”

“So tell him.”  Rae said honestly.

“I can’t say that to him.”  Izzy was so embarrassed by the thought.

“Don’t say it, just grab his hair and shove his head back down there.”  Rae shrugged as Chloe laughed, “I’d do it to Finn if he didn’t finish the job!” 

“Oh god!”  Izzy chortled. 

“I’m guessing he don’t last long enough once he finally whacks it in you.”  Chloe asked.

“I don’t know how long, long enough is?”  Izzy shrugged.

“Long enough for you to cum.”  Chloe answered.

“I read a book that said not all women can come from penetration.”  Rae countered.

“Really?”  Chloe asked, “That surprises me.” 

“Me too!”  Rae laughed. 

“Were it a book written by men aimed at men, so they didn’t feel so bad about how much they fail?”  Chloe snarked and the girls all laughed. 

“Oh I shouldn’t laugh.”  Izzy said and then she coughed.  Chloe and Rae knew that Chop had finally convinced Izzy to be admitted to hospital, she was going in tonight.  He’d told them this morning.  They listened as Izzy got her coughing under control, it sounded like she had a pretty bad chest cold.  She took a deep sip of water before turning to them with a big smile. 

“Anyway.”  Chloe said faintly, looking to Rae for help.

“Masturbate.”  Rae added.

“Yes.”  Chloe continued, “lotsa girls do.  And if we waited for men to get it right, we’d be waiting around forever!”  Izzy nodded slowly, considering this and then turned to Rae.

“Tell Finn to try.”  Izzy suddenly said.  “I want my first orgasm to be with my fiancé.”  She said determinedly, “And I don’t have forever to sit and wait around for it!”  Chloe and Rae stared at Izzy for a minute.

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”  Chloe asked, “I can’t imagine Chop taking it well.”

“I dunno.  But it’s worth a try.”  She responded. 

“Alright.”  Rae said slowly, “I’ll tell him to slip it in to the boy talk somehow.”  Izzy nodded and an alarm went off in the bedroom.

“I gotta go to chemo in half an hour.”  She looked down miserably, “Chop’ll be home from work to take me, soon.”

“Is there anything you need?”  Chloe asked.

“No.”  Izzy said and looked back at her hamper, “Massage oil.”  She grinned.

“I’ll talk to Finn, but promise me, that you’ll try that vibrator eventually!”

“I will Rae, don’t worry.  I’m not gonna die without having an orgasm.”  She said with a grin that gently fell.

“Well then you got plenty o’ time.”  Rae said with a firm voice, hiding the fear she felt.  “I were thinking you needed to lose your O-plates before Easter holiday.”

“Or at the latest during Easter holiday.”  Chloe added also hiding her emotions. 

“Ok!”  Izzy grinned.  “If I haven’t lost me O-plates by the end of Easter break, I’ll use the vibrator.” 

 

 

_They’re so brave and strong my friends._

_I can see in their eyes that they notice how frail I’m getting._

_Whatever Chop said to them worked; they give me moments of joy in the never-ending monotony of illness and tests and wasting away._

_He’ll bring me food again._

_I hate not eating it, cos I know how much he worries._

_It’s not like I do it deliberately._

_I wish I could eat some of the delicious stuff he brings._

_I’m getting really worried about me ring, cos me finger is smaller now, and it slide on and off too easy now._

Chop walked in the door to see Izzy sewing Rae’s dress again.  She desperately wanted to get it done. 

He kissed her and handed her a custard filled profiterole in a paper bag. 

“Fridge?”  He asked after she’d looked at it and she nodded smiling.  He put it in the fridge and took the food he bought her yesterday out, dumping it in the bin. 

She came into the kitchen and he took her hand.

“Off we go then.”  He said with a brave smile.

“Tell me everything that happened to you today on the way?”  She asked.

“Alright.” 

 

 

***

 

 

_I hate seeing her like this.  Hooked up to that machine while they slowly pump that poison right into her veins._

_I know it’s saving her.  But it’s also killing her._

_That is some fucked up shit right there._

His eyes strayed to her short, thinning hair before they slowly travelled down her slowly shrinking frame. 

He noticed the bags under her sunken eyes, the way her fingers were painfully thin, the fact that she didn’t even notice when her gums bled anymore, like they were now. 

He watched that lifesaving reddish-orange liquid that he reviled travel down the tubes, from the drip, into her vein.  He wasn’t allowed to sit and hold her hand, so he sat on the other side of the room, keeping eye contact with her.

“Chop.”  She said softly, swallowing hard; nausea was getting the better of her, “can you just speak.”  She liked to hear his voice when she felt sick.  And she felt sick a lot lately.  He nodded and tried to think of something to talk about.

“You’re beautiful.”  He said to her and her eyes told him that she didn’t believe him.  “Right now.”  He insisted, “With all that shit going in you veins, and your hair gone and your bones all sticking out.  You’re beautiful.”

“Chop.”  She tutted.

“I can tell you don’t believe me.”  He shrugged, “I don’t know what it is.”  He shook his head, “Something inside you… it’s stunning.”  He smiled wanly, “D’you know what it is?  It’s the fact that if it were me, I’d be balled up on the floor wanting to die.  But you…” he smiled in admiration, “look at you, fighting the whole way.  Determined to… do your schoolwork, and be with me and… have your mates over.”  He tried to find what he was trying to say, “And mostly, it’s how you stand toe to toe with this fucking thing...  And you don’t flinch.”  He felt tears in his eyes when he saw one slowly creep down her cheek, he wanted to go to her, but he knew he couldn’t.  “How d’you do it?”  He looked at her in deep admiration, “you’re the bravest person I know.”  He nodded, “So yeah, you’re beautiful, right now, exactly as y’are.  Cos you’re brave.  And you’re still my Izzy.  And you’re so, so beautiful.”

 

 

Chop dropped the keys on the hook she’d nailed into the wall near the front door. 

The still quietness of his flat struck him as he turned a light on.  The nurses had kicked him out.  He looked over at the time on the microwave.

2 am.

He’d stayed, holding her hand as she slept.  And he’d cried to see her lying there, looking like a corpse. 

He sat down heavily on the longue and looked up at Rae’s dress on the mannequin.  Izzy’s shoes in the corner, her huge sewing box overflowing with material and thread next to the mannequin. 

The image of her lying so still on the hospital bed, barely breathing wouldn’t leave his mind. 

He went into the bedroom, he could smell her in here.  She had commandeered a set of drawers for herself and he ran his fingers along the top of them, as if by touching her drawers he could somehow touch her.  He saw her pony tail of red hair, sitting on top of the drawers and felt as if something were pressing upon his chest.  He gasped and stood there, looking at her butchered hair; cut off with ordinary scissors on a school hallway.  He picked it up and sat down on the bed, putting the hair to his face, he could smell her shampoo.

He stroked the hair gently and put it back on the drawers, and laid down on the bed, pulling her pillow to him.  Wishing desperately that she were beside him.  Wishing he could hold her.

He felt so alone and desperate. 

But mostly he felt hopeless and powerless.

 

 

 

 

_‘Coma’ by Max Sharam_

 

_Patience._

_Most men lack patience._

_But not me._

_I know that good things are worth waiting for._

_And she’s a good thing._

_And I’ve waited for a long time._

_But it’s starting to pay off._

_Things are slowly changing._

_The odds are in my favour now._

_The patience, the waiting._

_Soon._

_Soon my love._

_I’ll be with you soon._

_The days are dark now._

_Every single thing she has ever said to me screams in my ears day and night._

_The stars don’t come out at night anymore._

_The sun is not golden, it’s the piss yellow at the bottom of a urinal._

_Grass is not green, it’s the colour of the vomit coming out of the mouths of drunks._

_The only real colours are grey and brown._

_The world is grey._

_Her eyes are brown._

_There’s a pain in my body._

_Why does my body ache so much?_

_Every expression her face has given me sits in the pit of my belly._

_I ache for her._

_I ache for you._

_My love I ache for you._

_Why do I feel this way?_

_She’s nothing!_

_She’s a fucking whore!_

_She’s not pure._

_She’s not good._

_I never wanted to love her!_

_Why won’t this feeling just fuck off?_

_She were supposed to just be a bit of fun!_

_A nothing._

_Just a laugh._

_Why is she more?_

_WHY?_

_Why’d she have to be with Finn?_

_I don’t understand what’s so good about him._

_What is he?_

_He’s not a man._

_If my mates called her Raemundo I’d flog them._

_Raemundo isn’t a very sexy name._

_It doesn’t suit her._

_For a guy who does the sorts of things he does to her, you’d think he’d be more interested in protecting her honour._

_But he’s more interested in getting his dick in her than protecting her._

_He don’t know her._

_It’s a stupid idea that he could ever love her like me._

_Anything he feels could only ever be a tiny little speck of dust in comparison to my love._

_He is insignificant and beneath her._

_I understand why Chloe is her best friend now._

_I thought they was opposite._

_But they’re more alike than I realised at first._

_Like two opposite faces of the same coin._

_Their cores are made of the same stuff._

_The same self-loathing._

_Malleable._

_You just gotta know how to push and bend them the right way._

_I misread you Rae._

_I didn’t realise how much you’d make me work._

_I thought you’d be easier._

_How many days has it been now?_

_Just listen to the clock ticking._

_Wait._

_Wait._

_Patience._

_Good things come to those who wait._

_Good things come to those that wait._

_Good things come to those who wait._

_Good things belong to me._

_Just one more day._

_Another night._

_Don’t go there._

_Don’t watch her._

_Don’t give her gifts._

_Just wait._

_The longer you wait the more of a fuck up he’ll make._

_The longer you wait the longer he’ll leave her alone._

_The longer you wait the sooner you’ll get to her._

_And she’ll finally be yours._

_Mine._

 

 

 

_‘Bull In The Heather’ by Sonic Youth_

 

Rae’s eyes scanned the papers.  She ignored the noise levels in the room.  Friday afternoons were always hard for focussing, but she enjoyed performing arts so it was easy for her. 

“You’ve captured the theatre of cruelty perfectly Phillip.”  She marvelled and saw the smile on his face, “you’re a genius.” 

“We’ll have to edit Izzy’s part out though.”  Stacey said as she looked down at the outline. 

Finn sat with a scowl on his face. 

They’d begun the lesson with a theatre game.  Phillip had made Rae laugh while Finn had declined to play.  Then the announcements that Rae and Phillip’s duologue was chosen to go through to the regional sixth form performing arts competition.  Josh and Candace were also chosen and they were still deciding the third place; it was going to be Izzy and Sam, but that was not a possibility now. 

So Phillip and Rae were heading out in a few months time to spend a few nights away together at this competition. 

“No we can just absorb her characteristics into Archie’s role and instead of twins have a person with multiple personalities.

“Genius.”  Rae grinned at him and skipped through to the ending ideas.

“Good idea.”  Archie agreed.

“And devilishly good looking too.”  Phillip said.

“Can’t forget that!”  Rae laughed. 

Finn sucked his teeth moodily. 

Stacey looked sideways at Finn and Finn noticed the look she was giving him.  He gave her a dirty look and looked up at the ceiling sighing loudly.

“I used your idea for the ending.”  Phillip leaned in towards her and pointed to midway down the page.  “It’s just so brilliant I couldn’t not use it!”  Finn scowled at him and watched as Rae leaned in to see where he was pointing.

“Did you use Izzy’s lighting?”  Chloe asked.

“Yep, page 5.”  He turned his eyes back to Rae, “now we just need our top genius to pick through this and make it something worthwhile.”  She smiled winningly at him and looked down at the notes making notes here and there, while everyone else debated various parts of the script. 

Finn didn’t read it.  He just watched Phillip flirt with his girl, and she was lapping it up.  He started to pick at his back teeth with his tongue, glaring at Phillip.  He barely notice all the changes being made to the script as it was finalised, didn’t notice everyone organising to meet at lunch to do rehearsals for it. 

He just saw Rae, sitting between Phillip and Chloe, beaming, glowing.  Beautiful as always.  But it wasn’t him making her smile like that. 

When it was time to go he jumped up and grabbed her bag as usual and she smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back, she’d already turned to Phillip, organising a writing date for the other play. 

He waited for her as everyone else cleared out and Phillip and her organised a few writing dates. 

“You can go if you’re gonna be late.”  She said suddenly to him and he shook his head.

‘I’m fine.”  He said numbly. 

He watched them chat for a while longer and then Phillip turned to leave, giving Finn a wink before he left.  Rae was still looking at the notes grinning when she turned to Finn. 

“What’s wrong?”  She asked when she saw his unimpressed face.

“You do nothing to discourage him.”  Finn said, not bothering to hide what was irritating him.

“No.”  Rae agreed, “I treat him the same way I treat Archie or Chop.”  She replied, frustrated that this was still an issue. 

“Yeah but-”

“I know!”  She snapped, “I’ve heard it before: Chop and Archie don’t wanna fuck me so it’s different.”  She sighed, “I’m tired of this argument, if you can’t trust me Finn, why are you with me?”  He had been leaning forward towards her, but now he leaned back and took her in. 

“You would rather upset me than him.”  He felt like he had uncovered some great secret.

“No, I’d rather that you trust me.  I’d rather that I can treat everyone the same and you not be a jealous little boy!”

“Right.”  Finn said slowly, “so… so you’re arguing with me, your boyfriend, over someone who’s just a mate?”

“You started it!”  She said, clearly exasperated by him, “being moody and scowling at us.  We’re just doing our schoolwork.”  She watched Finn narrow his eyes in thought, “why do you have to keep thinking that he wants to fuck me.  He don’t.” 

Finn looked down at the ground for a moment.  He had told Rae about some of the conversations he’d had with Phillip.  She believed Phillip was trying to rile him up because of how moody and protective he was.  Finn was beginning to believe that she was deliberately playing dumb on the topic because she liked Phillip’s company.  She didn’t want to believe that Phillip liked her because she wanted to be able to keep hanging out with him.  But Finn knew there was no point saying any of that to her.  She was stubborn, and she’d have to see it in her own time.

“I was gonna say that you complimented Phillip on the way he looks more in this class than you have me for the entirety of our relationship.”  Rae opened her mouth to protest and then stopped as she realised he was right.  “I can count the number of times you’ve told me I’m good looking on one hand.”  He said softly.  “But today, you told Phil seven times… that he were attractive in some way.”  Finn moved closer to her, making eye contact with her, “so tell me that I got nothing to worry about Rae.” 

“You said that you knew that I thought you was fit.”  She said in a small voice.  Finn lowered his eyes.

“I guess I need more reassurance than I thought I’d need.”  She saw the rawness on his face, realised that she had been letting him down, knew that she had pushed too hard with Phillip.

“I’m sorry.”  She answered.  He shrugged.  “I think you’re the fittest lad I’ve ever seen.”  She tried to add and he shook his head angrily.

“No Rae, it don’t mean anything if you do it when I’ve asked you to.”  He handed her, her bag and started to walk out of the room sadly.

“So you don’t believe me?”  She asked.  He stopped.  He didn’t turn around.  He thought about how he truly felt.  He felt like he needed a few minutes away from this.  And he felt very shaken and unsure of himself.  Seeing her compliment Phil so much had upset him. 

“Not really.”  He kept his back to her.

“So you’re saying I’m lying to you?”  He turned to her.

“I don’t know!”  He snapped.  “I just know that I feel very… unsure.” 

“Of us?”  She asked horrified. “Or of me?”  She felt tears prick her eyes.  He shook his head, “what do you mean Finn?”

“I don’t know what I mean.  I just need…”  He needed a moment alone before he fucked up again. 

“What do you need?”  She asked as a tear escaped her eye, “D’you need to be able to believe in your girlfriend?  To not think that she’s a liar?” 

“Rae…” His mood shifted when he saw her crying; his feelings could wait.  “No, that’s not-” he reached out for her but she pulled back.

“No!”  She snapped, “You don’t get to pretend that you didn’t just call me a liar.” 

“How’d you feel when I weren’t telling you that you was beautiful?”  He asked pointedly, “How long did it take you to believe me?”  He tried to step closer, “do you even believe me now.” 

“That’s different!”  She said, “I’m ugly and you’re the most painfully beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”  Her throat closed up when she saw the look on his face, “I…” she couldn’t find the words so she stared at him stupidly.  Suddenly an idea came to her.  She opened her bag and sorted through it and pulled out her diary.  She shoved it in his hands roughly.

“What’s this?”  He asked looking at it.

“It’s my diary.  It starts just after we started dating.  I can give you the one before that too.  That goes back to when I first met you.”  She straightened up defiantly, “so that you can read every single thought I’ve ever had about you.”

“Rae I can’t read your-”

“Read it!”  She barked angrily.  He stepped back, having never seen her this angry.  “No secrets.”  She whispered. 

“Rae…”

“No.”  She shook her head.  “I don’t want to talk to you when you think I’m a liar.”  Her face screwed up with emotion.  “So you read that tonight.  And tomorrow morning you can meet me at my door.  And apologise.”  She started to walk away.

“Rae?”  He called after her.

“No!”

“Your stalker!”

“NO!”  She left the hall and finned groaned loudly in deep frustration with himself.  He looked at the wall knowing that giving it a good punch would make him feel better but he took a deep breath and decided to ditch PE and go home. 

He looked down at her diary and shook his head.  He shoved it in his bag having no intention of reading her private thoughts. 

 

 

 

 

_‘Pictures of You’ by The Cure_

 

Finn sat on his bed and tried not to pick up the phone; she wouldn’t be home yet. 

He worried about the stalker of course, but he felt confident that Archie would drive her home, and she’d be safe in her own home.  He laid down on the bed making an annoyed noise. 

But the bed felt too big without her in it.  He sat up again and looked down at his bag.  He’d promised her that he’d do his homework.  He picked up his bag and pulled out his science textbook, he could bang out a few of the questions easy enough.  He saw her diary and paused.

_You can’t read it._

_But she wants you to._

He ran a finger along it.  He could see that she had used up most of the book already and would need a new one soon.  He pulled it out and looked at it feeling deeply conflicted. 

_I’ll just look at the first few pages._

He opened the diary.  And the first thing he saw was a crumpled up and then flattened out page that had a picture of himself glued onto it.  He felt a chuckle in his throat as he looked at all the little love hearts.

“I want to nibble his biceps?”  He chortled.  And at the bottom of the page he saw the words ‘Chloe does not deserve him.’  He saw that the page had been torn out, probably from her previous diary.  He read the comments, a stupid grin coming over his face

_I want him to run his hands all over my body_

_Tongue: I want to suck like a lollipop._

He found himself laughing delightedly as he looked at this one page.  He flicked through the other pages and saw that there was no way he could read it all tonight, so he decided to pick random entries and read them.  The first one had just been about Aiesha crying all night so he skipped it and tried another one, searching out his name. 

 

_Dear Diary_

_I didn’t sleep last night.  I haven’t slept yet.  And I’m fairly certain that after he cooks breakfast, Finn’s gonna go down again._

_It’s brilliant.  He’s eaten my cunt so much over the last 10 hours that he could probably paint it from memory.  His jaw must be fucking broken.  Poor lad._

_I’ll only make him go down a few times today…_

He laughed and skimmed the next few lines

 

_Oh it were heaven Diary.  After I came he rolled me onto to my back and had at me again._

_Then we got in the spa bath, and he couldn’t stop touching me and kissing me.  He acts like I’m Cindy Crawford or something; the way he looks at me._

_If I think about it too hard, I keep thinking it mustn’t be real._

 

He paused, re-reading the last line.  He flipped forward a few pages

 

_Dear Diary_

_6 days._

_6 days._

_We broke up on the 23 rd of December 1996._

Finn stopped.  This was when they had broken up.  He ran his fingers over the dates she’d listed. 

_Time seems to move so slow and so fast._

_It feels like it’s still the 23 rd.  And that time has frozen on that moment of pain.  Everything hurts as if it was happening right now.  _

_But it feels like it’s been decades since I saw him.  Since I kissed him._

_I lie awake at night thinking about how he felt lying in the bed next to me._

_Sometimes I lay his shirt out beside me and smell him on it._

_I can’t believe I’ll never feel his arms around me again._

_That I’ll never feel his lips on mine._

_That I’ll never tell him…_

He stopped and put his hand over his mouth looking up at the window a deep sadness drifting over him. 

The curtains were open.  Of course.  He smiled, thinking about his girl.  He flipped forward, not wanting to read any more of that.

_Dear Diary_

_Sorry I’m not writing much, but I am very busy with a genuine sex wizard!_

_Sometimes when I see him naked I think I will actually flood the entire country._

_He makes me lady parts gush._

Finn laughed incredulously, blushing even though he was alone.

 

_He’s just so sexy. I think they need to redefine the word because the definition is clearly my boyfriend._

_Bloody hell.  I still can’t believe he’s all mine._

_I remember when I used to daydream about the possibility that I might see him naked._

 

Finn’s shook his head, feeling strangely and absurdly satisfied, happy, giddy even

 

_Now when he presses his body against me, it’s all I can do to stop myself from weeping.  He’s so delicious._

_I just hope that he never realises that he’s really far too sexy for me._

Finn furrowed his brows and skipped forward.

 

_Dear Diary_

_Is it wrong to be glad that Finn will have to repeat performing arts next year?_

_I like the idea of him being around._

_At least next year, Stacey won’t be around._

_Her body is so perfect._

_And her face is like the sun._

_Sometimes I wish I could just put my mind in her body._

_I wonder if Finn would prefer that?_

_I know he says he likes my body.  I quite like that he says that._

_But I can’t help thinking that he likes me in spite of my body.  And I hate that feeling._

Finn raised his eyes again, realising just how much work he still had to do on her self-esteem.  And starting to understand why she never said anything about how he looked. 

He saw a reference to his mum and skipped down the page a little.

_I wonder what Finn would do if I actually bit his arse?_

_Maybe I could just lie on it like a pert little pillow?_

_I should just grab it.  And not let go._

_I bet if you was to scientifically measure the curve of Finn’s arse you’d find the definitive answer to all of life’s mysteries.  Especially what makes a woman happy._

_I can’t believe I get to shag him._

_Oh god, if I let myself think about it too much I’ll end up flooding the fucking school._

He laughed again, his face burning with a joyful embarrassment. 

“You’re crazy girl.”  He said, far too pleased with the stuff she was writing.  He bit his bottom lip, but couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. 

_He’s still like looking at porn._

 

He couldn’t help but keep giggling.  He flicked forward again.

 

_Dear Diary_

_Sometimes he snores a little and I can’t sleep._

_But it’s ok cos he don’t wake up when I put the lamp on, and I can write._

 

“I snore?”  He asked the empty room.

 

_Sometimes I just want to stare at his face forever._

_He has the most beautiful eyes.  Sometimes, they get this look in them… sometimes I think he’s looking at me like he might love me._

_Oh I shouldn’t even write that here._

_Why would he love me?_

_Don’t be negative Rae._

_You’re fine.  Remember?_

_But I feel like if I think about it too much, or if I want it too much, I’ll just make it all fall apart._

_Don’t think about it._

_Think about the way he looks at you with those perfect eyes._

_And his mouth.  Those lips._

_His lips taste like happiness and sex._

_And his jawline makes me want to cry it’s so sexy._

Finn put a hand up to his jaw unconsciously as he kept reading.

 

_There isn’t one thing I don’t like about him.  He is actually perfect in every way._

_Especially his hands.  And his arms when he wraps me up in them._

_OH MY GOD DIARY!!_

_He just said my name in his sleep!_

_This is the third time I’ve heard him do it – and it’s never any less exciting._

She’d drawn several hearts and smiley faces around this and Finn traced them with his fingers

_I wonder what he’s dreaming?  Something good I hope._

_I can’t believe that sex god Finn Nelson, is lying in bed next to me, and possibly dreaming about me._

_How did that happen?_

Finn turned his eyes to the opposite page and read it

 

_That curve in his cock will be the death of me!  He just makes me cum so quickly cos of it.  And also because he is actually so sexy that I am so turned on all the time that I have the girl equivalent of blue balls._

_What wold you call that?_

_Cobalt clit?_

_Teal titties?_

Finn laughed loudly.

 

_If he fucked me all day constantly I’d still be horny like a 16 year old virgin.  It’s that body and that face._

_That face._

_I could stare at it for years._

_Those shoulders are a fucking national treasure._

_Stop staring at him, he gets self-conscious, and you’ll never finish writing this if you don’t!_

 

He skipped to the bottom of the page, a huge dopey grin on his face.

 

_Sometimes I think I don’t tell him often enough how glorious he is.  But he totally knows how fit he is, he don’t need my stupid gushing to convince him._

_If I tried to tell him I’d probably just make a dick of myself anyway.  No actually, I’d probably cry over how beautiful he is._

_But really I should tell him how handsome he is, cos I know he don’t know.  If he did, he wouldn’t be with me._

Finn wanted to scrub that line out.  He wanted her to have never felt that way.  He flicked through some more pages and a name jumped out at him.

“Phillip.”  He breathed as he read the passage.

 

_Dear Diary_

_I’m quite chuffed that Phillip liked my writing.  I’ve never really done anything like this before, and he is a really good writer._

_Elsa said that Phillip could be a kind of writing mentor for me, not because my skill needed it but cos my confidence did.  And she were right, having a guy that’s won so many awards for writing, praise what I wrote has been really amazing._

_I even started writing other stories.  I might show Finn later on.  I wouldn’t show anyone else!_

_I do wish that Finn would stop banging on about Phil liking me.  I don’t want to think that way cos I don’t want to believe that he only liked my writing cos he wants me._

 

Finn stopped and re-read it, realising how much this all meant to Rae as he read the next line.

 

_I so want to do something in writing for my career.  And I just want to believe that I’m actually ok at it.  I suppose Finn is probably right.  He’s right about most things.  But I just don’t want him to be.  I just want Phillip to be an awesome friend who digs my writing._

_At least Finn’s really good about it all.  He’s so kind and patient with me._

“Oh fuck.”  Finn sighed.

 

_He really is the perfect boyfriend._

 

Finn closed her diary and put it back in his bag with his science book.  He raced out the door, jogging to get to her place.  If he hurried, he might even beat her home. 

 

 

When Archie pulled up outside of Rae’s house, a red-eyed Rae sitting next to him, he pulled a face and shook his head at Finn, leaning up against the door, her diary in his hands, he had read some more while he waited for her.  Rae stared at him from the passenger seat and looked away, saying a few words to Archie.  They hugged and she got out of the car.  Archie nodded at Finn and pulled out of the driveway

She walked up to him and didn’t say a word.  He held out the diary to her and she looked down at it then back up at him.

“I meant it.”  She said with a soft, tear-stained voice, “read it.”

“I already read enough to know I owe you a very big apology.”  He shook his head, “Even if I hadn’t read any, I was out of line.  Just being a dickhead.”  He looked down, “Seeing you with other guys upsets me.”

“I’m not with him!”

“I know.”  He placated her.  “It’s not what I meant.”  He looked at the diary that she still hadn’t taken, “maybe I’m wrong about Bill, and I’m just being over jealous.”  She took the diary and held it to her chest.

“You’re probably right.”  She said sadly, and he understood where that sorrow came from. 

“Nah.”  He shook his head, “I’m a knobhead when it come to you and other guys.”  She smiled at him and he pulled her into his arms.  “Wanna take a nibble?”  He grinned when he saw her eyes on his bicep, pressing through his shirt.  She narrowed her eyes at him.

“How much did you read?” 

“Enough.”  He raised his eyebrows cockily.

“Oh god.”  She groaned.

“I was thinking we could measure the curve of my arse.”  She turned crimson in front of him and his grin broadened, “if you’ve got the time… or inclination.” 

“How long am I gonna be hearing about this?”  He shrugged.

“Until you can say all the things that you wrote about me in that diary o’ yours, to me face.”  He took her hands, “But you know, take your time, I filled up me fuel tank reading it.  Right good for me ego.”  He cocked his jaw proudly and Rae rolled her eyes.

“I can tell.”

“So I’m quite keen to take you upstairs and make love to you Miss Earl.  Is that alright?”

“Well we better hurry then before me mum’s soapies finish and she wants to talk to us!”

They went in and hurried up the stairs, barely saying hello to Linda and Karim, who sat snuggled on the longue watching tv. 

He started kissing her on the stairs, she stripped his shirt off and he grabbed it before it hit the ground; they couldn’t leave it out here.  She opened the door and he closed it with his foot, but they never made it to the bed. 

They made love on the floor right then and there. 

 

 

 

 

_‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ by Queen_

 

She woke up to him hugging her tightly from behind.  His head leaning against the back of her head, his knees tucked in behind hers.

Sometimes the way they fitted together so perfectly like this made her think that it was a sign that they were fated to be together. 

She felt him stirring and she rolled onto her back carefully, he shifted for her and opened his eyes.  She watched him as he stared at her face for a long time.

He leaned down and kissed her, stroking her hair gently. 

“Alright girl.”  He said as he stroked her face.  She leaned up and kissed him again and he moved himself to be in between her thighs.  He looked down at her, kissing her tenderly, stroking her hair. 

He saw that look in her eyes that made his insides turn to jelly and knew he had to tell her how he felt. 

Everything was perfect right now.  They were both calm and peaceful, they had held each other all night.  And even though they had had an argument, she had trusted him enough to let him read her diary.  And it had deepened his understanding of her. 

Every day he fell more in love with her.  And he was becoming more sure every day that she felt the same. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt closer to you.”  She sighed.  “It’s weird.”  She grinned self-consciously, “it’s like letting you read my diary, it put you inside of me head.”  She touched his face.  “You know Finn,” She swallowed hard, nervous about what she was about to say, “You truly do have a genuinely perfect face.  You are just stupidly handsome.”  He grinned.

“Stupidly handsome?”

“Take it or leave it.”

“Taken.”  He kissed her and she sighed contentedly, “I think this is the happiest I’ve ever been.  It’s like every day I just get happier with you.”

“Well I’m glad, cos this is forever.”  He could see the fear in her eyes, knew that she was working up to something, and that reminding him of what they had said to each other before was part of that.

“Aye.”  He said in a low tone, “we’re forever.”

He gently penetrated her as they kissed and she sighed contentedly. 

It couldn’t get any more perfect than this, and Finn stared into her eyes, stroking her face, making love slowly, allowing all the feelings he had for her rise up inside him.  He sensed that she was doing the same thing. 

They kissed, barely moving now, and the door slammed open.

“Fuck.”  Finn pulled the blankets around them, but was still inside of Rae as Linda came shambling in, her face tear stained and her hair frazzled. 

“I have to go out.  I have to get away.”  She said, barely seeing their stunned faces, as they lay embracing each other.  “I have to go.”  She started to leave, “Take care of the baby.”  She started to cry as she left.  They watched her go, their insides shaking. 

“Where’s Karim?”  Finn asked very softly as they heard her leave the house. 

“Work, he’s doing three jobs.” 

“Fuck.”  Finn said as they heard Aiesha start to cry.  They separated reluctantly and put clothes on. 

“We’ll finish this later?”

“Oh aye.”  Finn took her into his arms and kissed her passionately, but briefly before he bounded down the stairs to get Aiesha.  Rae followed slower, knowing that often babies seemed to cry for no reason at all.  He was rocking her when Rae came in.

“She’s on the nose a bit.”  He said and Rae grabbed some nappies and Finn started to strip her down.  “Oh.”  He said in a disgusted tone. 

“What is it?”

“A shit explosion.”  He said as he took the nappy off gingerly, a disgusted look on his face.

“Watch your language in front o’ her.”

“Oh right.”  He pulled an apologetic face and she handed him some wet wipes to clean up the mess.  At that moment Aiesha decided to pee.

Rae started laughing as Finn backed away from the mess she was creating. 

“You are very disgusting little one.”  He said to her when she’d stopped and he looked at Rae, “She need a bath now.”  Rae nodded.

“Laundry sink.”  He picked her up and took her to the laundry.

“Just check the temperature on your inner elbow.”  Rae told him.

“Inner elbow.  Alright.”

“I’ll make breakfast.”

“Alright.”  He said to Rae as he put Aiesha on top of the washing machine.  He’d seen Linda do this many times; it was an impromptu baby table.  He kept a hand on her as he rinsed out the laundry sink, found the plug and started to fill it. 

“Do you use soap little one?”  He asked her as he looked around in the cupboard for something that might be used in her baths.  He could hear Rae banging around in the kitchen, singing to herself. 

“Right Aiesha, I think this baby soap is probably yours.  I can’t see your mummy or daddy using it.”  He juggled the soap and a wiggling Aiesha over to the sink, he nearly put her in without checking the temperature but then remembered.

“Too cold for you!”  He said excitedly and she made a gorgeous sound that made him grin.  “Yes it is!”  He agonised over the temperature for a while and then gently lowered her into the sink, keeping her supported in one arm.  He grabbed the soap and gently started to clean her.

“You know Aiesha, I guess I’m kinda like your brother in law.”  He said in a gentle lilting tone.  She cooed at him, “Because I love your big sister more than anything.  I know!”  He said as if she’d spoken, “I know how annoying she is…”  He said with a cheeky grin, “but I can’t help it.”  Aeisha watched him with adoring eyes, “Your daddy told me that you can’t chose who or when you love, it just happens.  But you know, even if I could choose… I’d choose her.”  He gently poured some water on her scalp and she wriggled and made a strange gargling noise.  “I’d choose her in a heartbeat little one.  And you know why?”  He put soap on her little feet, “cos she perfect in every way.  And she make me feel like nothing else.”  He tickled her little belly and she squirmed, “So you me sister in law.  And I’m gonna do everything I can to look after you.  Cos me blood sister… Gracie... well…” He looked down at Aiesha as she kicked her legs uncoordinatedly in the water, “Gracie not with us anymore.”  He said softly, “so I’m gonna make sure nothing happens to you.  You’re me little sister.”  He lifted her out of the water and held her to him as he grabbed a towel. “I hope you don’t mind.”  He wrapped her up inexpertly but lovingly, “cos you kinda stuck with me now.” 

He took her out to the longue room and quickly put a new nappy on her.  Rae had laid out some clean clothes for her and he spent a long time trying to get her wriggly, squirmy body into them, the whole time he spoke softly to her and treated every noise she made as if it were an important part of the conversation. 

Rae was plating up a very dodgy looking omelette when he returned to the kitchen with Aiesha nestled in one arm.  He looked down at the omelette with a huge affectionate grin.  He put Aiesha in her cot and sat down to eat the omelette. 

“Do you want tomato sauce for it?”  She asked apologetically.

“No I wanna taste what you cooked me.”

“No I don’t think you do.”  She laughed.  But he picked up his fork and ate a big mouthful. 

“Did you put cinnamon in this?”

“Yeah Izzy said cinnamon goes well with eggs.”  She looked down at the brownish omelette, “Did I put too much in?”

“Nope.”  He took another mouthful, “it’s perfect.” 

“Don’t lie.”  She shook her head, amused at his unwillingness to criticise her cooking.

“I feel quite impressed that any girl would wanna cook for me, let alone a goddess like you.”  He answered, “I’m really just happy that you’re feeding me.  Don’t worry about the cinnamon.” 

Rae took a bite, the big smile on her face turned to instant disgust.

“Ugh, that foul!”  She spat it out.   “How are you eating that?”

“Ah, I’m such a boy!”  He grinned.  Rae poured tomato sauce all over the eggs and Finn laughed at the look on her face as she took another bite. 

“This is the worst.”  She declared and took it to the bin.

“I’ll have it!”  He rescued the food from her and she shook her head at him. 

“Cereal for me I think.”  She went back into the kitchen and Finn looked down at Aiesha, sleeping peacefully.

“Rae?”  He asked as she came back into the room, “what are we gonna do about your mum?”

“I dunno.”  Rae looked over at Aiesha.  “She seemed to be getting better for a while, but…”

“Kester always says recovery isn’t a straight line.”  He said and Rae nodded. 

“Karim said he would take care of her, and that I shouldn’t worry.  But I think she’s alone too often cos of how much he works now.”

“Should we stay here more often?”

“It’s an option.”  She ate thoughtfully for a while, “I’ll think I’ll have another chat with Karim, see what’s happening.” 

“Aren’t they going to Tunisia soon?”

“Yeah, they leave this after, for four nights.  Taking Aiesha to meet the family.” 

“So we get the place to ourselves.”  He said with a wicked grin and he leaned over the table and kissed her.  She scrunched her nose at the taste of the cinnamon omelette on his lips.

“Yes we do.”

“Oh I do like that.”  He grinned, “Make you scream good and loud.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Laid’ by James _

 

Finn woke up with tired eyes.  They had had all kinds of sex last night after Karim and a much more peaceful Linda had left with Aiesha for Tunisia.  But they had not recaptured that perfect moment.  It was too exciting every time they had the place to themselves, they always went big and loud when they could.  He didn’t mind so much now.  He knew it was coming.  She knew it was coming.  It would come when it came. 

He did his push ups in silence, his mind playing over all the things in her diary.  He still hadn’t come to terms with that first page he saw.  It was like the song he had been writing for her.  She had crushed on him too.  Badly.  And he loved it.  She was still crushing on him.  Almost as badly as he was on her.  He glanced at her as he moved his arms wider apart for his wide push ups. 

When he left that house to jog to the boxing joint he carefully locked the door behind him and sprinted, he was late for Chop. 

By the time he got there, Chop was taped up and hitting the bag, as hard as he could, a heavy sweat dripping from him. 

“Afternoon.”  Chop snarked.

“I’m not that late.”  Finn looked up at the clock and pulled a face, he was 30 minutes late.  Finn taped up, they were going bare knuckles today.  Chop stopped and watched Finn for a moment.  Finn could tell he had something on his mind, but he was hesitating to talk about it.  Finn kept his mouth shut, letting Chop figure it out in his own time.

“Can I ask you something?”  He asked eventually.  Finn raised his eyes to Chop and nodded, “But you gotta not tell anyone.”  Chop said, “Not even Rae.”

“You can’t ask me to not tell Rae.”  Finn answered honestly. 

“Finn… I need this to be private.”  Chop said seriously and Finn sighed.

“Alright, if she don’t ask I won’t tell.”  Chop scrunched up his face and Finn shrugged, “best I can do.  She me girl; she has free access to what’s in me head.”  Chop considered this.

“Alright.”  He said lowering his voice.  Finn started to punch the bag and Chop braced it for him.  They didn’t talk for a long while, Chop thinking while Finn punched. 

“In Sutherland.”  Chop said suddenly and Finn softened his punches so he could focus on Chop while he worked out.  “I heard, well we all heard, Rae screaming.”  Finn scrunched up his brows trying to think of what might have made Rae scream, spider, wasp… and then he realised.

“You all heard that?”  He asked astonished.  “I thought the doors were thicker than that.”  He pulled a face. 

“Does she always do that?”  Chop asked ignoring Finn’s discomfort. 

“Not always.”  Finn shrugged.  “When we make love and it’s all slow and nice, she just makes these slight whimpers and sighs, with a little bit of a moan.”  Finn tried to be helpful, feeling that he actually knew where this was going. 

“Right.”  Chop said slowly.

“But when we fuck it’s different, we get both get louder and rougher, and sometimes I’ll even talk dirty to her.”  He shrugged, “it’s just different ways of doing it.”

“D’you think you’re pretty good at it?”

“I try to be.”  Finn said honestly.  “The first time we had sex I only lasted 7 minutes.”  Finn punched the bag hard a few times, “I decided that I was gonna be better than that the next time.”

“But how d’you do that?”  Finn stopped punching the bag and turned to him.  He thought for a while.

“You want me best advice?”

“Yeah.”

“You only need to know four things.  To be pretty decent.”  Chop nodded, “One.  Slow down.”  Finn went to get water and Chop followed.  They sat on the bench.  “Slowing down is hard for us lads.”  Finn said honestly, “cos she just so warm and sexy and…” Finn grinned and Chop nodded his head with a cheeky grin.  “But you gotta slow down.  Take your time.”  Finn said meaningfully, “however long you think you should be doing something at least double it.”

“Double it.”  Chop mulled it over.

“So you might think ‘I been stroking her body for long enough.’  Nope.  Double it.”

“Double it.”  Chop nodded.

“Except for going down.  You lick that cunt till she cries out and shakes no matter how long it takes, even if it breaks your fucking jaw.”  Finn saw a look in Chop’s eyes that told him he’d never seen Izzy like that and he turned his eyes away subtly.

“Number two.  Pay attention.”  Finn said, “her body will give you cues.  Like her moans will go up in pitch when she’s getting close, or her muscles will tense in her thighs.  Pay attention to her.”  Finn deliberately didn’t say Izzy’s name that way the advice seemed generic, not aimed at Chop “I am learning all the little things that Rae does that tells me what she wants, how she wants it, when she’s close.”  Finn nodded, “pay attention to her and take the attention off your own cock.”  He took a sip of water and Chop nodded as if he’d never thought about this kind of thing before, Finn continued to not look at him so Chop could look bewildered without being seen.  “Third, communicate honestly.  Tell her what you actually want to do, without pressuring her.  And encourage her to tell you.  And don’t judge each other.  This one’s hard to do, and I haven’t got it perfect yet.”  Finn scrunched up his face, “but it’s important.” 

“Slow down, pay attention, talk.  Fourth?”

“Don’t be afraid to experiment and have fun with it.  Don’t take it too seriously.”  Chop leaned back on the bench.

“And that’s how you make Rae scream like that?”

“Pretty much.”  Finn kept his eyes forward, Rae had told him about the latest conversation with Izzy.  “I can’t stress enough how important the first step is.”  He added trying not to sound too pointed.  “Even if you’re in a frenzy of fucking, going as fast as you can, slow down your mind, if not your body, so you can pay attention.”  Finn saw Chop taking it all in beside him, “Just remember to focus on her more than you.  Don’t worry, you’ll cum, you got a dick, you’ll always cum.  Make sure she does first.”

“How do you know she cum, I mean when Rae’s not screaming?”

“You just do.”  Finn said, “Like I never made Olivia cum.  Not once.”  He shrugged, “At the time I didn’t even think about it.  I were just getting mine, you know?”  Chop took a swig of water and nodded, “When I got with Rae, well I loved her so much I really wanted her to enjoy it.  So I paid closer attention.  It was only after I saw Rae coming that I realised I’d never made Olivia cum.”

“Girls are so complicated.”  Chop complained.

“Not really.  They’re just different.”  Finn said, “Like I could cum in like 4 minutes.”  Finn laughed, “But Rae takes about 10 minutes to really get going, so I gotta slow myself down or I’ll never get her there.  So I just started thinking vagina, instead of penis.  Change the focus.  It’s much easier that way.”

“Right, so slow down, pay attention, talk, experiment, and take focus off your cock.  So five steps.”

“Well really the last one is a philosophy not a step.”  Chop nodded and Finn continued, “So I assume you got a mate that’s asking this stuff, and you figured you’d get a bunch o’ lad’s advice to share with him, rather than just share your own.”  Finn said carefully.  Chop considered this.

“S’pose.”  He said softly. 

“If he’s got any other questions.”  Finn looked sideways at Chop, “Any.  I’m open to answering them.  I do alright with Rae.  I learn a lot with her.  She’d want me to share that knowledge so other girls can scream.” 

“I think that’s enough.  For now.”  Chop replied.

“Well he can ask at a later time if he needs to.”  Finn looked at him and Chop gave him a grim smile.

“You’re a good mate Finn.”

“So are you Chop.”  They had an awkward moment of silence, “right your turn on the bag.”  Finn said bracing the bag for Chop.

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Rammstein’ by Rammstein _

 

Rae yawned and went to the window to watch him running off to the boxing joint. 

“Too sexy.”  She grinned as she went to the bathroom.  She threw some clothes on and headed downstairs, thinking she’d cook pancakes for Finn.  But she’d have to go through all her mother’s cook books first to find a recipe. 

She slammed the books down on the coffee table and sank back into the lounge with the first one. 

Rae sat up, thinking she’d heard a sound.  She looked around, her ears straining.  Nothing.

She laughed at herself and shook her head.  It had been so long since she’d had a moment alone that the silence was getting to her.  She got up and put the television on so she didn’t jump at every little sound. 

She stopped on a delicious looking lamb shank recipe and wondered if she should try cooking that for Finn sometime soon.  And then laughed at herself, as if she’d be able to cook that.  Cooking was not her thing.  She’d just be happy to do the most basic things for him.  She turned the page, lost in her thoughts.  The news was distracting her so she got up to try and find some cartoons.

Rae screamed as arms closed around her.  She struggled as the arms tightened in on her and she found herself gripped tightly by a man.  She screamed again and he put a hand over her mouth.  She struggled wildly, kicking out and hitting the tv.  He swung her around, moving her towards the kitchen.  She kept trying to scream and free herself.

Somewhere from the back of her mind Finn teaching her how to use his weight against him came to her and she dug her heels in, and bent swiftly, grabbing the arm around her throat, using his weight against him to push him over her head.  He fell with a thud on the floor, between her and the front door.  She turned and frantically ran to the back door. 

It was dead bolted.

“Shit fuck shit.”  She scrambled to find the keys.  Then remembered they were back in the lounge room.  She’d have to go out her bedroom window.  She ran for the stairs but he was right behind her.  He grabbed her hair, painfully whipping her back.  She cried out as her hands flew to his hand.  She tried to scratch him but he wore leather gloves.  She twisted and kicked his shins then used her elbow to cork his arm.  He let go and she pushed him, once again turning to run away without even looking at him, this time she ran up the stairs.  He grabbed her ankle and she fell but quickly twisted to kick out at him, his hand quickly letting go of her. 

She ran to her room and closed the door behind her wondering if she should try to brace against it or just go straight for the window.  She cried, tears clouding her vision as she looked around the room and decided to just go straight for the window. 

She ran across the room, and grabbed hold of the window trying to open it before unlocking it.

“Shit!”  She cried frantically as she scrabbled with the lock.  She felt herself being pulled violently backwards by the clothes, then the hair and she slammed backwards into him.

“NO!”  She screamed trying to free herself, but he grabbed her around the throat tightly then whipped out something that he shoved in front of her eyes.  Rae was instantly still when she saw what he was showing her.  It shone silver, so pretty in the light.  And its blade looked deathly sharp.  He slipped it between her throat and Finn’s necklace.  She whimpered in terror, her breath coming in ragged gasps.  With a swift flick of the blade he’d cut the necklace from her throat.  And it dropped with a heavy thud to the floor.

Rae stood there, her back pressed against this man, facing her window.  So close to the freedom of outside.  She saw the bright day outside, the place on the road where you could see into her room.  A dog sniffing at a fence post.  He slowly, carefully placed the knife against her throat.  

She felt his breath on her neck as he brought his lips to her ear. 

He whispered to her, the words travelling like a snake from his mouth to her ear

Her eyes opened widely. 

She knew who it was that was holding a knife to her throat his hand creeping up to her breast.

“You belong to me.”

 

 


	7. Chapter 7 - Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the seventh part of an 8 part season 3 fanfic.
> 
> If you can, read with the suggested music.
> 
> cheers m'dears

 

_ ‘To Wish Impossible Things’ by The Cure _

 

Linda breathed in the salt air.  She felt the warm sun on her skin.  She didn’t know where Karim and Aiesha were.  She trusted that he was looking after her.  So she didn’t worry. 

She sat down on the sand and watched the waves gently lapping at the shore. 

Since Aiesha had been born there’d been a lot of noise in her head. 

Her entire world had seemed to fall apart; everything was so grey, so bleak. 

Things that had been easy had become so difficult.

And Aiesha had cried a lot at first. 

And all the drama with Rae and Finn and stalking.  It had been too much. 

She hated herself, but she was glad when Rae was at Finn’s place.  It was too much to handle.

She had smiled through the deep fog that surrounded her life. 

She had defended her baby girl Rae as much as she could; but in the end that had been delegated to Finn.

Finn, a boy she wasn’t even sure she could or should trust with Rae. 

“I have failed my girl.”  Linda said to the ocean feeling a tear drip on the back of her hand. 

She hadn’t even been present; even when she’d been sitting there.  The fog wrapped around her and made her mind be somewhere else.  Somewhere blank. 

But blankness was preferable to the moments when her mind would race and she couldn’t quieten it down at three in the morning, lying awake, exhausted in bed, next to her beautiful husband. 

A beautiful husband she had had no desire for since Aiesha’s birth.  Some reservations after giving birth were to be expected, but this was too much.  She knew she should want him.  And sometimes she felt a muted glow in the pit of her belly when he touched her. 

It just felt like this would never end.  That all memories of happiness were fading and disappearing and there was only this endlessness.  Endless nothingness inside. 

“What’s wrong with me?”  The waves washed ashore unaffected by her words.  “I should be the happy.” 

She wondered if she had done something to make this happen.

If she deserved it.

She felt Karim sit beside her.  She looked over at Karim’s brother, taking Aiesha into the water carefully. 

“I love you.”  He said softly to her and put his arm around her.  She nestled into his embrace, feeling calmer than she had for months. 

“Can we stay here longer?”  She asked wistfully and he nodded his head. 

“I call Rae.  Tell her.”  He said and stroked her hair.  “When get back, you see-”

“I don’t need a therapist pet.”  She dismissed his words, darkness seeping into the spaces between them.  He had been asking her for weeks to see a therapist.

“You see therapist.”  He said firmer. “Because I love you.”  Linda looked up at his earnest face, “Helps Rachel.”  He explained.

Linda watched Aiesha cooing and wriggling in the water, held protectively by Ahmed.  Karim saw where she was looking and waited for her to look back to him.  But she didn’t look back to him, her eyes got lost in the endless ocean. 

“You love me.  Rachel.  Aiesha.”  He whispered to her as she looked out at the water.  “Come back to us.”  She turned her face to him, “Please.”  He touched her face, “See therapist.”  He kissed her gently, aware that his brother wouldn’t approve of such public displays. 

“Alright.”  She suddenly realised that the idea of seeing someone about this terrified her.  It made it all more real.  She tried to take a deep breath to steady herself but found that her lungs felt blocked up with anxiety.  “What’s wrong with me?”  She asked in a small, childlike voice; her fear heartbreakingly clear to Karim.

“Nothing.”  He soothed her carefully, “just depressed.”  He used the word Rae had taught him. 

She settled into his arms properly, enjoying the sun on her skin, the ocean sparkling in the light, Aiesha’s coos and Karim’s love. 

She closed her eyes feeling almost peaceful, and rested.

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Reptile’ by Nine Inch Nails _

 

Rae made a small whimpering sound of terror as she felt his hand close on her breast squeezing it hard.  She closed her eyes, but found that closing her eyes made her focus sharply on all the places he was touching her, made her hear the way her breath was whimpering in and out of her lungs.  She snapped her eyes open and focussed on the dog outside, now pissing up the fence. 

She was scared to even breathe; she knew that the knife pressed against her neck was sharp; it had cut through her necklace chain with ease.  She had seen a knife that Karim owned that cut through beef bones easy enough.  And biology and television had taught her enough about how fragile the neck area was.  She knew with painful clarity how clearly her life was dangling at the whim of this man. 

She could feel his breath on her neck.  She felt his hand find its way under her shirt and squeeze her other breast hard.  Her whole body was shaking with fear, but she dared not make a sound. 

“D’you know what Rae?”  He whispered in her ear, “People always underestimate me.” 

The tip of his tongue just barely grazed her ear and he groaned.  She held her breath, her whole body tense, disgusted, horrified. 

“D’you know why that is?”  He asked her, his lips brushing against her neck.  She had to stop herself from shuddering in revulsion, afraid that any movement would result in the slicing of her neck. 

“Let me hear your pretty voice.”  He hissed.  “Answer.”  He commanded immediately after, his hand squeezing her breast so hard she cried out in pain, eliciting an appreciative sound from him. 

“I don’t know.”  Her voice cracked and wavered. 

“Me either.”  She could feel his cock growing hard, sticking into her buttocks through their clothes.  She had to repress a sob, but tears still soaked her face. 

“I always think it’s because of the company I keep.”  He switched his hand to her other breast and fumbled to get his fingers under the material of her bra.

“Please.”  She whimpered as his hand found its way onto her soft skin.

“Ooooh.”  He sighed, she felt him take a deep breath and sigh in appreciation as his fingers found her nipple.  She sobbed, keeping herself as still as possible.

“Please.”  The word barely left her mouth, her vocal chords seemed unable to give voice to her pleading. 

“Maybe it’s my habits.  Or the way I speak.”  He licked her neck and she sobbed loudly, making him groan in response, his cock stiffening even more. 

“Unbutton your top.”  He ordered her as he removed his hand from her bra and grabbed her hair roughly.  Rae couldn’t move, she shook with fear and watched the outside world, wishing she had made it out the window. 

“Unbutton your top!”  He commanded aggressively. 

“OK!”  She cried.  Rae lifted her shaking fingers to the top button of her shirt and fumbled with the button. 

“I don’t think you got to know me properly Rae.” 

“I’m sorry.”  She pleaded with him as she undid another button, her fingers barely able to cooperate. 

“Are you sorry Rae?”  He twisted his fist in her hair and she cried out. 

“Yes!”  Her voice was strangled with pain, her neck extended up as he reefed at her hair, she felt the blade moving on her neck and cried loudly.  “Please!” 

“Are you sorry?”  He bit her neck softly, tenderly, sexually and that was far worse than the pain.  He took the blade off her neck slightly and sobs wracked her body as soon as the blade was no longer pressed against her. 

“Yes.”  She answered through her tears.

“UNUBTTON YOUR FUCKING SHIRT, YOU WHORE!”  He roared at her when her fingers stopped moving.  And she cried out in fear.

“Alright!”  Her whole body was tense, shaking her fingers began to fumble with the buttons again. 

“Because you want this don’t you?”  Rae cried as he used her hair to nod her head.  “Say it Rae.”  He said with a sadistic pleasure. 

“Yes.”  She barely whispered. 

“I’ve seen you.  You’re not the girl I thought you were.”  He said suddenly angry.  The knife was against her throat again.  “Why him Rae?”  She was crying too much to answer, her fingers scrabbling with her buttons, her terror so complete that she was sure she was going to die here in her bedroom while people were jogging down her street below.  He grew impatient and reefed his hand roughly from the tangles of her hair; ripping some from the roots.  She clenched her teeth, holding in the cry of pain this time.  Her mind was starting to scramble for a way to survive this.  He reached down and brutally tore open her shirt.  She gasped in fear and surprise.  He dragged her towards the mirror on her wardrobe door. 

He spent a long time looking at her in the mirror, his body pressed against her back.  Rae saw the knife pressed against her neck, saw his hand on her stomach, saw the look of desire in his eyes.  She could see that the knife had slightly cut her neck and a small drop of blood was slowly travelling down her neck. 

“Take your shirt off.”  Her chest heaved with huge terrified breaths, but her body was starting to shake less, her mind was oddly calmer now.  Being able to see him, to see the knife; it made her feel like she had some sort of control.  Part of her knew that this wasn’t true, but she ignored that voice and focused on the calm feeling, on the idea that she could create a plan to escape.  She slipped the shirt from her shoulders slowly, not wanting to make that knife press against her throat any harder. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over, by Crowded House _

 

Finn decided to finish up when Chop did, even though he’d been late and he’d missed his tri-sets.  They pulled the tape from their hands, Chop complaining that he’d cut one of his knuckles, and headed to the showers. 

It was nice at this time of the morning, there weren’t too many people around and the quietness always made them work out harder. 

“So how do you get Rae to be so up for it all the time?”  Chop asked as they turned on the showers.

“I don’t.”  Finn admitted, “I think that’s just her!”  He turned to put his back under the water, “I been right lucky there.”  He grinned but then thought about it for a moment, “but she’s been more keen for sex since I made a real effort to constantly tell her how beautiful she is.”  Finn realised. 

“It’s just…”  Chop paused, “at the moment Izzy’s not right in the mood.”  He turned to face away from Finn.  “And I wouldn’t mind really… it’s just.”  He made a frustrated sound, annoyed at his inability to say the right thing.  “With all this stuff…”  He shrugged, trying to hide his emotion.  “I just thought we had time.  To you know, fumble through it all… Figure shit out.”  He cleared his throat and leaned his arms on the top of the opposite wall, his head down, his shoulders rounded.  Finn looked over at him, biting the inside of his cheek, trying to think of something he could tell Chop.

“When Rae’s a little angry at something, nothing serious, just you know… riled up a little… and the way her cheeks flush is doing stuff to me,” Finn thought about the way she looked when her cheeks got pink with frustration, “And I want her badly… I try to do stuff to take her mind of it and put it on me and what I want to do to her.”  He picked up the soap thoughtfully, “it don’t always work, mind.  But if I tell her about what I want to do and how sexy she is and tease her a little bit, and spend some time just slowly touching her body, I can usually get her into bed.  But sometimes she right determined to be angry, and it just make it worse!”  Finn chuckled, thinking back to the times that had happened.  “She so sexy when she angry.”  He marvelled, “as long as she not angry at me!”  He adding laughing and Chop chuckled, his mood lifting.  They showered in silence for a while, Chop’s mood slowly falling again.

“I don’t think I’ve made Izzy…”  He stopped looking away.  Finn sucked his bottom lip and looked the other way.  “I just need to do this for her before… oh fuck.”  Chop took a deep breath, close to tears and looked everywhere but at Finn.

“It’s not an easy thing to do.”  Finn said softly.  “I never got there with Olivia.” He reminded Chop, sharing the embarrassment.  Chop nodded.

“It’s not like I weren’t trying… not like I didn’t kinda know… it’s just… she seemed alright with how things were.  And she kinda shy.”  Chop exclaimed, “It’s not like she’ll talk about it or tell me what she likes.”

“That does make things harder.”  Finn sympathised. 

“I just thought I had time to figure it out.”  He said, ashamed. 

“You still do.”

“I heard Izzy’s doctor saying to an intern that it weren’t common.  She told us to our faces that it were.” 

“Probably trying to comfort-”

“So I went to the library.  Fucking hate that place.”  He looked down at the floor, “looked it up.  80% of kids who get it will survive.”

“That’s not a bad number.”

“40% o’ adults.”  Finn felt like he had been punched.  He didn’t know what to say to Chop’s anguished face.

“She’ll survive it.” He said, his insides not as confident as he made his voice sound.

“And the chance of relapse…”  Chop wiped angrily at the tears in his eyes. 

“Chop.”  Finn caught Chop’s eyes and held his gaze steadily.  “Izzy is going to survive this.”  He said slowly, forcefully.  Chop nodded. 

“I know.”  He said sounding unconvinced.  “But I just keep thinking about all the things she wanted to do with her life.  All the things we’ve never done together.  The future we wanted.”  Finn didn’t know how to stop this train of thought for Chop. 

“Alright.”  He said suddenly, deciding that the best thing to do was to return to what Chop had started with; to give him something to focus on.  “You want a fail safe way to make her cum.”  Finn didn’t look at Chop, didn’t see him slightly nod his head.  “Go down.  Wait…” Finn paused, “start at the beginning Finn.”  He told himself, “In public, tell her you’re gonna do it, tell her you’re gonna make her cum.  Make her wait for it.”  Finn tried to think of what made Rae scream the loudest.  “Touch her in public, tease her with it.”  Chop took a deep breath and nodded.

“Is that what you’re always whispering to her?”

“Not always.”  Finn grinned.  “But a lot o’ the time.”  He admitted, “Then when you’re finally alone, don’t do it right away.  Long slow kisses.  Kiss her mouth, then her body, touch her, especially along her sides.  That’s what Rae likes.  I dunno about Izzy but it’s a starting point for you.”  Finn took a deep breath, deeply uncomfortable about going into so much specific detail but knowing he had to, “then when you get to her bits.  Don’t kiss ‘em.”  He saw Chop’s incredulous face.  “Just kiss her thighs and her belly, slowly get closer, but don’t do it.  Kiss her with your mouth wide open, move your tongue slow over her skin.”  Finn closed his eyes, remembering in detail everything he did.  “Be conscious of what your hands are doing, make sure they’re touching her right.”  He thought about how Rae reacted to him doing this to her, “when she starts to get frustrated, like she really want it, then you can give it to her.  Sometimes I make Rae beg for it.”

“Get the fuck out.”  Chop shook his head.

“Aye she’s done worse to me!”  He grinned, happy to see that his plan had worked, giving Chop something to focus on, something he could achieve had taken his mind off the fact that Izzy had less than a 1 in 2 chance of surviving.  Even if it hadn’t let Finn forget it. 

“That saucy minx.”  Chop said with less of his usual exuberance. 

“Oh aye.”  Finn agreed, “When you start licking, do it slow.  You’ll have to pay attention to Izzy, see what she likes.  After a bit o’ that, start fingering her.  Um…” He took a deep breath, Rae would kill him if she knew how much detail he was going into.  “Rae’s got a sensitive spot right, a couple o’ centimetres inside at the front.  I found it by accident, just paying attention, you know.  If I give that a little rub while I’m licking her, she cums so hard.”  Finn shook his head in admiration of the orgasms she had, “so you know, do that, and when she starts to breath heavier, that’s when you get faster.”  Finn looked over at Chop who was slowly nodding his head.  “You keep doing that till her body shakes and she moans and stuff, keep going while she’s shaking till she stops you.  Then, you know, have at her.  If you’re lucky, she’ll cum again.” 

“Izzy gets embarrassed about me being down there.  Like it’s terrible for me.  She worries that I don’t like it.”

“So make her not worry.”  Finn answered with a shrug, “Tell her how much you want to be down there, tell her it tastes good and you love doing it.  Keep telling her till she believes you.”  Chop looked off thoughtfully.  “Tell her how much you want to do it, in public, how you been thinking o’ the way she tastes.  Whisper it to her while you’re eating dinner with her parents.  Let her know it’s always on your mind.”  Finn nodded when Chop looked over at him.

“Alright.”  He said with a small smile, “I think I can manage this.”

“Course you can.”  Finn said as if it had never been in doubt.  “And we never had this conversation, cos Rae’d fucking kill me for telling you all that stuff.”  Chop grinned.

“Alright.”  He looked up at the ceiling, “can’t do much while she in hospital but.”  He sighed. 

“When she get out?”

“This course finishes just afore Easter.” 

“Maybe the gang could head out for the school break.”  Finn mused.

“Can’t go to Sutherland, me family’ll be there for Easter.”

“We’ll think o’ something.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Spiel Mit Mir’ by Rammstein _

 

He took the knife from her throat and stepped back to allow the shirt to fall to the floor. 

“Don’t move.”  He ordered as he took another step back to look at her.  Rae took a deep shuddering breath and she saw the way his eyes watched her breasts raise.  She wanted to cover herself.  Her eyes flicked to the door.  He was between her and the door. 

“You looking to get out aren’t you?”  He ran the knife down her arm.  “Try it.”  Rae looked back at the mirror and slowly shook her head.  “Go on.”  He laughed, “Run for the door.”  He took another step back, “I’m not stopping you.”  Rae swallowed hard and turned towards the door. 

He brought his hand up with a ferocious force and back handed her across the face.  Rae stumbled from the force, her hands impulsively snapping up to her face.  Her body shook as she wept, her cheek hot and painful, her lip split and bleeding. 

“Are you gonna leave me?”  He asked in a gentle, kindly voice.  Rae looked up and him and shook her head slowly.  “Not gonna walk out that door are you?”  She shook her head again, not able to get her crying under full control.  “But I’m disappointed that you thought about it Rae.”  He said in an angry tone.  “What makes you think, that you get to choose to not be with me?”  He looked at her as she cried.  “ANSWER!”  He barked at her and she jumped, crying out in fear.

“I dunno!”  She wept, “I dunno.  Please don’t hurt me.” 

“Don’t hurt you?”  He said with disgust, “do you know what it’s been like watching you whore around with that fucking pretty boy?”  Rae shook her head at him and he grabbed her hair and the back of her head violently, and pulled her upwards by it until she was on her tiptoes, crying in pain.  “You hurt me bad Rae!”  He put the knife tip under her eye.  And looked at her crying face, “Don’t tell me not to hurt you when all you’ve done is hurt me.”

“I‘m sorry!”  She cried, “Please.  I’m sorry!”

“Sorry you gave it up to someone who can’t want you like me?”  He ran the tip of his knife down her face, down her chest, between her breasts and down to her stomach.  “I hear stab wounds to the stomach can take a long and agonising time to bleed out.”  He said thoughtfully.  “I read a fair bit more than you’d think.”  He explained as if he was talking about his best baking tips.  Rae whimpered as he pressed the tip of the knife against her stomach, the sharp end piercing the skin.  She gasped as he drew the blade across her stomach lightly, leaving a painful cut.  She started to cry with terror as he turned her back to the mirror and she saw the blood starting to drip from the cut. 

“Oops.”  He put his mouth to her ear again and left the knife over her stomach, the other hand he reefed from her hair painfully again and ran it down her back. 

She shook violently from sobbing and fear but she felt his hand settle on her back.

“Look at this fat roll.”  He said with a mixture of disgust and admiration.  He squeezed the side of her back were a gentle roll naturally formed.  He squeezed it hard and she gritted her teeth and held the cry of pain in this time. 

“Who’d have thought that a big girl could be so fucking sexy?”  Rae felt a strange sense of shame as he stepped back again and looked at her appraisingly.  “But you are by far the sexiest girl I’ve ever seen.”  His eyes crawled all over her body and Rae felt violated by his penetrating glare.  She so wanted to be covered.  But she stood there in her bra and sweatpants, unable to move for fear of what he’d do to her. 

“I had no idea I could want you so much when I first met you.”  He pulled his hard cock out of his pants and Rae wanted to look away, but knew better than to move.  A sob of anguish and revulsion left her throat.  “See what you do to me.”  He groaned with desire and pressed himself to her back again.  “I’m gonna have so much fun with you.”  He murmured like a lover in her ear.  “We’ve both been so patient, waiting for each other.”  She could feel his bare cock against her and she closed her eyes feeling sick.  He reached his hand up and stroked her hair tenderly. 

“No more waiting.”

 

 

 

 

_‘Here Comes The Sun’ by The Beatles_

Finn usually ran hard on the way back from the boxing joint.  But today he was enjoying the sun and the scent on the breeze; it seemed like spring was coming early, and he could feel it in the air.  So he took a more leisurely jog, enjoying every step he took as he headed back to Rae’s place, eager to see her again.  He thought about making love to her and then maybe just relaxing for the morning; they’d probably hit the books in the afternoon after their session with Kester.

_Sounds like a perfect day._

Finn jogged past a few stores and pulled up short.  There was the cutest stuffed elephant with a bright orange bow around its neck in the window of one.  He thought instantly of Aiesha and checked the opening hours.  He looked down at his watch, it was quarter to eight and the store didn’t open until nine. 

_I suppose I could grab some breakfast and wait for it to open.  Give Rae a bit of a sleep in._

He looked up and down the empty street and looked back at the elephant in the shop window, trying to make up his mind.  He moved closer to the window and looked in.  The store had a wide variety of knick knacks and antiques and books.  On the counter he saw a stand with a lot of antique looking hair combs.  One in particular caught his attention, it was silver filigree with several emeralds embedded in the design skilfully. 

_She’d love that._

_That settles it._

He looked back down the road for a place to get some food and hang around for an hour.  He was just starting to walk away when he saw an elderly man step up to the door. 

“Hi.”  Finn said to him, “Is this your store?”  He asked and the man turned to him slowly. 

“I suppose you want me to let you in early?’  The old man said crankily as he unlocked the door. 

“Oh… um… no it’s ok.”  Finn answered guiltily.  “I just…” he shook his head.  “I’ll be back at 9.”  He grinned and started to turn away.

“Don’t be daft.”  The man said angrily and motioned for him to go in.  Finn tried to not look too confused as the man complained bitterly about people making him let them in early and walked into the store.  The elderly man walked to the counter never stopping his soliloquy about annoying customers.  Finn watched him for a moment and turned to the window to pick up the elephant.  There was a hand drawn price tag. 

“Only a pound?”  He asked confused.  He looked the elephant over, it was plush and fat and cute.  He squeezed it to see if it was filled with nails or something that would explain why it was so cheap.  He shrugged when he could find nothing wrong with it and went up to the counter.  He looked at the silver and emerald hair comb and picked it up, checking the hand written price tag. 

“5 pounds.”  He said, “Very reasonable.”

“They’re probably not real emeralds.”

“I figured.”  Finn replied.  “Why’s everything so cheap?”

“We’re a charity store.  Everything’s donations.  Everyone working here volunteers.  All money goes to local homeless people.”  He said it all as if he hated the world and wanted it all to burn.  Finn looked at him incredulously. 

“Oh.”  Finn said and looked back at his 2 purchases.  He pulled his wallet out and looked in.  “Here’s a tenner.  Keep the change.”  He took the elephant and the comb and left before he heard too much more of the shopkeeper’s grumbling.  He looked down at the comb and imagined Rae wearing it. 

“Good choice Finlay.”  He grinned and put it carefully in the front pocket of his gym bag, the elephant he carried, not wanting to put it in with his wet towel.  He looked back down the road at the place that did those bacon and egg sandwiches that Rae liked so much.  He grinned and headed for the café; he could see them putting chairs out already. 

He’d noticed that Rae’s taste in sandwiches changed quite rapidly, one week tomato and gherkin with peanut butter would be all she’d eat on a sandwich.  The next week it was marmite and cream cheese.  Then the next week it might be something normal like jam.  Just jam. 

This week she was mad about these egg and bacon sandwiches from this particular café.  He went in and ordered, grabbing the newspaper and sitting down while he waited for them to be cooked.  He skipped forward to the arts section, he knew that there was an interview with Janice about the arts centre coming up and he’d been looking out for it for weeks.  Janice thought they’d run it near the Easter holiday, but that didn’t stop him looking.  It wasn’t there, but he read an interesting opinion piece about Britpop being dead. 

The cook called his name and he went over to pick up his sandwiches.  He left the shop yawning and thinking about spending the day with Rae.  He really couldn’t recall a time in his life that he’d been happier than he was with her. 

He hadn’t realised how down he was, how bored with life, until she came, and she was everything he needed.  In so many ways she was like him, and every time he realised that it made him feel complete somehow.  He knew that every time he thought about Rae he’d grin stupidly like he was right now, and he didn’t care if anyone saw him looking so idiotic. 

He was halfway up the road when he realised he’d forgotten the elephant.  He jogged back and grabbed it.

“Can’t forget you.”  He said to it as he picked it up waving at the cook again as he left.  He sped up, walking a bit faster and crossed the road. 

“Finn!”  He turned around to see Olivia crossing the road to meet him.

“Oh hi.”  He said awkwardly.  She hugged him and kissed his cheek, he awkwardly only half returned the hug. 

“I thought you were in Leeds!”  She said excitedly.

“Oh, um.  No I came back.”

“That’s great!  We should grab a drink together or something?”  She smiled winningly at him.

“No, I don’t think so.”  Finn stuttered.  All the shame he felt for the way he had treated Olivia rose into his throat and he looked down at his feet.

“Oh come on Finn!  We’re both adults, we can have a friendly meal!”  He started to reply but a loud ringing sound came from her bag.  Finn looked perplexed, but she just smiled apologetically and reached into her bag, pulling out a mobile phone.  Finn frowned at it thoughtfully; he didn’t know anyone who owned a mobile phone and he hadn’t really seen one up close before.  He looked down at the bag of sandwiches and held them up to her.

“Gotta go!”  He said, “Food’s getting cold.” 

“Hang on a second.”  She said down the phone without saying hello.  She looked back at Finn, “I’ll give you a call about that dinner date, yeah?”  She nodded and smiling dazzlingly before talking on the phone, “Hello?  Oh hi Patty.”  Finn knew that Patrice was her sister.  She wasn’t getting off that phone any time soon so he couldn’t correct her.  Instead he smiled tightly as a goodbye and left. 

He walked several metres feeling as though he’d taken a blow to the head.  But why hadn’t he expected to see Olivia around?  Of course he would eventually see her.  He took a few deep breaths to get that meeting out of his system and thought about Rae again, slowly the smile started to creep across his face again.   He started to jog back to Rae’s house so the sandwiches would still be warm by the time he got there. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Wish’ by Nine Inch Nails _

 

“My whole fucking world has been filled with you.”  He breathed into her ear.  Rae watched his lips near her ear.  “I’ve wanted you for so long.  I’ve watched him touch you when it should o’ been me.”  His hand touched her bare stomach carefully, tentatively and he watched the way his hand moved over her skin in the mirror.  His fingertips leaving a trail of blood as they traced over the cut.  Rae felt disgusted by his hands on her skin, she looked away, not wanting to see it, but being unable to move her head, she could still see his hand moving over her in her periphery. 

She tried to imagine herself somewhere else because she knew what was going to happen. 

This body of hers.  This body she was only just learning to revel in with Finn was going to be ripped from her.  It was going to be devoured and used by someone who was not invited in.  He was going to make her hate this body in a way she’d never dreamed of.  He was going to make this body not her own. 

She tried to make her mind check out of the situation, tried to make herself not be here for this event.  This destruction of everything she’d been building up. 

He stood behind her looking at himself touching her in the mirror.

The first time she’d ever liked her body in any small way, it had been Finn standing behind her, watching himself fuck her body in the mirror. 

She felt a sob escape from her, she so wished she could stop feeling her body as his hand moved across her skin. 

“Look at me touching you.”  He commanded in a husky voice. 

Rae didn’t want to.  She didn’t want to see his hands on her body.  He pressed the knife against her throat harder and the threat was obvious.  She turned her eyes back to the mirror, she saw her clenched mouth, blood on her lips, quivering with fear and stifled sobbing, she clearly saw his hand moving back towards her breasts. 

Breasts that Finn loved, breasts that he practically revered, breasts that she had been starting to enjoy.  She hated the way his eyes focussed on them, hated the way his hand felt slipping in between her bra and her breasts, hated feeling his fingers on her nipple. 

He squeezed her nipple until she winced with pain through her clenched teeth.  He groaned happily. 

“Pain suits you almost as much as fear.”  He kissed her neck, his mouth open wide, his tongue slowly dragging across her skin.  He took as much of her breast into his hand as he could and squeezed it as hard as he could, Rae cried out in pain and he laughed.

“Pain looks real good on you.” 

She pleaded with her body to just go numb.  Begged her mind to just go somewhere else.  But she was more painfully present in the moment than she’d been with anything, other than making love with Finn. 

Making love with Finn was the only other thing that she stayed so present in, the only other thing that made her mind focus on the here and now, the only other thing that made her body feel every single touch in absolute tingling clarity. 

But now her body was feeling everything in absolutely terrifying clarity.  And her mind focused on the here and now as the last moment in time that her body belonged to her and to her pleasure.  Because he was making it his.  And she felt her inside crumbling; how would she ever come back from this?

She felt a moment of heartbreaking understanding for Chloe before her mind wouldn’t let her focus elsewhere for any longer.  A tiny moment of being away from this before being plunged back to the feel of his mouth on her neck. 

She felt his fingers pushing under the hem of her pants, heading down to her vagina. 

“You love to cum don’t you?”  He asked her lustily.  “Answer.”  He commanded.  He pulled the knife off her neck and showed it to her, “answer me or I’ll slice your fucking neck open and fuck you while you bleed out.”

“Yes.”  She said, her throat wanting to close up, her lungs threatening to stop working, her heart thudding in her ribcage.  She sobbed again.

“Shhhhh.”  He stroked her face with the back of the knife, “shhhh baby, it’s ok, I’d never hurt you.”  He rocked her slightly, one hand down her pants, the other holding a knife to her face, “Not unless it were sexy.”  He gave her a huge reassuring grin.  “I love you Rae.”  She stared at his face, horrified by hearing him say those words to her.  “Tell me you love me.”  She nodded slowly to placate him as she tried to make her mouth form those words.  Words she had delayed saying to Finn.  Why?  Why hadn’t she told him?  Now she would die, or if she didn’t die, she would become a shell of herself, unable to be touched by anyone.  And she will have never told him that for one moment in her life she was happy and in love.  For one moment she had been free with him.  But all of that was ending now. 

“I love you.”  She made herself say. 

“I knew you did.”  He said, sounding oddly relieved.  “You was just playing with me.  Making me jealous.”  She averted her eyes from him again as his fingers found her clitoris and started to brutally, painfully rub it.  She gasped with pain and he groaned again. 

“You’re all the stars in my sky.”  He said to her, gently kissing her neck.  “I’m gonna make you cum.”  He whispered in a way that she suspected was seduction for him.  “I know how much you want it.”

How could he not feel how tense her body was, how did he not see that she didn’t want this, didn’t want him to touch her?  How did he not see the look of terror on her face?  He took his fingers from her pants and smelled them. 

“Nice smelling cunt.”  He giggled joyously, “I knew it would be.”  She felt the blade move against her cheek and resisted the urge to move her face away; she knew he would punish her for pulling away in any way whatsoever.

“But I don’t just love you for your cunt Rae.”  He said earnestly.  Rae was confused by how quickly his intent changed, “d’you know I remember every single word you ever said to me?”  He smiled, “you’re so funny.”  He put the knife against her throat again and she whimpered, he put his other hand on her face.

“Who wouldn’t love this face?”  He said to her reflection, “Look at those eyes.”  He pointed, his finger coming close to her unblinking eye, “there’s gold in them.  Did you know that?”

“No.”  She answered before he had a chance to threaten her.

“I see it cos I love you.  And I paid attention, people think I don’t.  They underestimate me.  Think I’m dumber than I am.”  A thought finally came to Rae; a helpful thought.

“I don’t think anyone thinks you’re dumb.”  Her voice sounded tiny coming from her mouth.  She’d had to work so hard to get her mouth to say it.  She felt the blade pull away from her neck slightly. 

“That’s my baby girl.  Defending her man.”  He stroked her hair and she had to stop herself from wincing with disgust.  Get him onside, get him to lower the blade, run.  That was her plan.  She was not dying in this room. 

 

 

_ ‘Doll Parts’ by Hole _

 

Chloe sat on the bench in the sun.  She closed her eyes and raised her face to the light and warmth.  Spring was coming early this year. 

Her mind started to work over what Archie had said to her about the gang going away for Easter holidays and how they should make it a tradition to go somewhere together for holidays.  She thought it was a brilliant idea.  Finn would do whatever Rae wanted, and Chloe knew Rae would be up for it.  They just had to find out if Izzy and Chop would be up for it.  And that depended on Izzy’s health.  She looked up the footpath, waiting for him to appear like he always did on a Saturday morning.  Strolling along the river.  She saw a couple of teenaged boys, probably 18 or 19 years old looking at her with interest.  She felt her arms cross over her chest, her hand going to her throat, pulling the material of her shirt up.  One of the guys nodded at her as if to say hello and she looked away, wishing that Kester would get here soon. 

The lad that had nodded at her came and sat down beside her. 

“Hey.”  He said cockily.

“No.”  She returned without looking at him. 

“I just want to have a chat.”

“And I don’t.”  Chloe said, hugging herself tighter.

“C’mon, don’t be like that.”  He persisted.

“I just wanna sit here and enjoy the sun uninterrupted.”  She turned to look at him, “and would you look at that, I don’t get to get what I want.  So I guess you don’t get to get what you want.”  She turned away and tried to not let her frantic inner thoughts show. 

“There’s no need to be a bitch about it.”  He said as he got up and walked away.

_People always call me a bitch._

_But I don’t see how that was bitchy.  I didn’t give him any indication that I wanted his company._

_Why can’t men just leave me alone?_

_I just want to sit here.  Why is there always some dick trying to get in my pants?_

She felt someone sit down beside her, smelt the unmistakeable odour of men’s deodorant and turned angrily to tell whoever he was to fuck off. 

But it was Kester smiling happily at her.

“Hey.”  She said, he anger instantly gone. 

“Hi stranger.”  He grinned, she returned the smile.  “So how’s the week been?”

“Shite.”  She said honestly.  “Izzy’s so sick.  I’m still in love with Finn.  Chop is falling apart but trying not to show it.  I’m worried Archie’s in an abusive relationship and Rae has so many guys after her I just don’t even know what happened!  One minute I was the one to be jealous of, and now it’s her.”  Chloe shrugged, her body starting to loosen up after the confrontation with that boy, “I sound like an infant don’t I?”  She shook her head in disgust with herself.

“Not at all.”  Kester shook his head slowly. 

“I just want to go back to how it was before all of this.”  She looked down, “I don’t mean that I want Rae to hate herself again, I mean for me, not her.  I want things to go back to how they were for me.  I want to be adored and to like boys again and… not have this ache in me.”

“Tell me about boys.” 

“I had a moment a few weeks back now.”

“The football match?”  Kester said as he pulled out his cigarettes and lit one up. 

“Yeah, were I was right proper turned on.  They was so fit.  But since then, nothing.” 

“I think that’s fine.  It takes time to want to be touched again.”  He reassured her. 

“I know.”  She said slowly, “But I keep thinking that maybe I don’t want to be touched cos I can still feel their hands on me.  And I need to get their hands off me afore I can enjoy being touched again.” 

“What’s happening when you feel their hands on you?”  He turned his face to her but kept his body facing forward.  He had learned that Chloe was not comfortable with men approaching her squarely; it felt too confrontational to her, too threatening. 

“It’s all the time Kester.”  She looked at him, “will it ever stop?”  She asked in a small pleading voice.

“Are you feeling them right now?”  He asked with a calm voice. 

“No.”  Chloe said, “Not now.”

“What’s different now to all the times you do feel it?”  Chloe looked into the distance as she thought about it.

“You make me feel safe.”  She said slowly.  Kester pulled his ear and licked his lips.

“So I think we need to work on ways to make you feel safe as often as possible, until you feel safe much of the time.”  Chloe turned to him, looking at his kind face.

“Thank you for doing this for me.  I don’t even pay you.  Getting free therapy.”  She tutted at herself.

“Not therapy.”  He reminded her, “just two strangers talking.”  He smiled, “so what makes you feel safe.”

“No chance of sex happening.”  She smiled and turned back to the river, “kindness.  And Rae.”  She thought, “and my bedroom.  But sometimes when I’m alone for too long I feel them again, even in my room.  But then if I’m around people too much I worry I’ll feel those hands on me and I panic and it gets so tiring.”

“Well let’s just work on one of those things.  Kindness.”

“You’re gonna tell me to be kind to myself again.”  She fidgeted with her fingers, “I do try to not hate myself.”  She sniffed, “but how could I go back there.  It’s my fault.”  She shook her head, “I know you’ll say it’s not.  And I’m trying to stop thinking that way.  But I just feel like my body is a crime scene.  A crime scene that I have to keep carrying around with me everywhere I go.  I feel like there’s chalk in me hair from the outline on the floor around my dead body.”  She wiped away a tear and took a deep breath, “I feel like if I could get away from the crime scene I might be able to sew up these wounds.  But the crime scene is in me.   It’s me.  It’s the wounds.  And I have to sew the crime skin into my skin… into myself.  I have to make the chalk-line a part of me.”  She looked at him, “how do I do that?  How do I turn a chalk outline of my dead body... the dead body of the old me… into a part of the new me…?”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Do You Love Me’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds _

 

Rae watched the blood from her stomach drip down to the waistband of her pants.  He was smelling her hair, the knife still not touching her neck, but she needed it to be further away from her before she tried anything. 

“I thought I’d just fuck you.  But you wouldn’t let me.”  He whispered.  “It made me want it more.”  He stroked her face, “But it wasn’t until you came for that slut Chloe that I realised that I had to have you.”  He held her chin, digging his fingers into her cheeks forcing her mouth open, he put a finger in her mouth and groaned.  “You was so strong, so powerful.  I had to own you.”  He put a second finger in her mouth, moving them in and out, his eyes transfixed by the movement.  “Had to listen to me twat mates give you crap while I slowly realised what a top bird you was; how much I wanted you to belong to me.”  He ran his fingers along her lips, “It weren’t until Chloe said you had a lad that I started to watch you, and I saw you with him… what a surprise that was.  But you was just doing that to make me jealous.  Clever Rae.”  He smelled her hair, “It worked.”  Saul squeezed Rae’s split lip and she winced, “So I waited till he let his guard down, and I came for you.”  He hooked his two fingers over her lower tooth and moved her head side to side, using her chin as a kind of handle.  “And now I control you.”  He breathed gleefully.  “I told you I always wanted a piece of a big girl.”  He kissed her shoulder.  “Now reach back her and wank me.”  He whispered.  Rae held her breath, desperately not wanting to touch him.  He licked along her shoulder to her neck.  “C’mon Rae, I want you to touch me.”  He put the knife against her throat again.  “You wanna touch me.”  She nodded slowly her insides churning as she reached behind herself and felt his throbbing cock with her fingers.  She balled her other hand into a fist as he groaned.  She could barely move so she just let her fingertips touch him, not wanting to take him into her hand.  She tried to stop the look of disgust on her face.  Tried to just look neutral.  She didn’t want to die. 

“My big girl.”  He breathed, his lips dragging along her shoulder repulsively.  “I’m gonna take you to me house.  And you’re gonna be mine forever.”

Rae’s heart started to thud as she realised that her real hope of getting out of this was fast fading away.  Finn coming back from the boxing joint was her only real bet of escaping.  She couldn’t get out her window because he was in the room with her.  The back door was dead bolted and so was the front door.  Even if she got down stairs she’d still have to scramble with keys to get out.  If he took her somewhere else, there’d be no Finn coming home.

But then, wasn’t that better?  No Finn to get stabbed by an enraged Saul.  She decided in that instant that she needed to get him to take her now.  To protect Finn.  She grabbed hold of his penis with one hand, her short nails biting into the palm of her other hand as she clenched it tightly.  He groaned lustily as she started to roughly jerk him; the angle, his penis wedged between her back and his stomach, it made it all so difficult, but she knew she had to do it.  If she could make him cum, he’d focus on getting her into his car and Finn would be safe. 

 

 

***

 

 

Finn leaned on the front door as he finished his cigarette.  Linda made it clear that there was to be no smoking in the house.  Even Karim was forced outside to smoke.  Aiesha reigned supreme in this home. 

He stubbed the cigarette out and rummaged his keys out of his pocket, unlocking the front door and entering the house, fumbling with his bag, the food and the elephant.  He headed straight for the kitchen, intending to come back and lock the front door after he’d put all his things down. 

Finn stopped suddenly and turned back to the lounge room, the television was on the floor.  He furrowed his eyebrows and turned back to the kitchen, the window over the sink was open. 

The house was eerily silent as realisation rushed toward Finn. 

He dropped everything he was holding and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Finn crashed into her room, and saw him, his back to Finn, Rae stood in front of him.  He could only see her arm and part of her back, but he could see the tension and fear in the way her fingers were balled up.  Finn could see that Saul was focused intently on Rae and had not even noticed him.  Finn recognised him as the guy from the fair.  The guy Rae had walked away with… Finn knew that this was the same guy that had tried to rape her.  And now here he was, touching Rae, against her will.  Again. 

Finn had crossed the room in seconds, and taken a huge swinging punch at Saul’s head, his fist connecting with his jaw.  Saul’s head rocked sideway and he fell away from Rae, the knife in his hand slicing along one side of her throat.

She gasped as she felt the pain in her neck. 

Finn looked down at Saul, his cock hanging out, blood on his fingers, the knife falling from his hand as he fell unconscious.  Finn looked down at Saul’s cock and understood what he had been doing to Rae, revulsion rose in his chest and he kicked Saul hard in the stomach, before he turned to help Rae, to see blood dripping from her neck.

“No.”  He realised what had happened.  She snapped her hands up to the wound, her eyes on Finn’s reflection.  He turned her around and put his hand over hers; putting pressure on the wound.  “Oh my god.”  He panicked.  “Rae, what do I do?”  He saw blood on her stomach, blood coming out of her mouth.  He had no clue how badly she was cut, if all of this blood was from the one wound.  He looked around her room for help and saw her phone. 

“Come on.”  He said urgently as he sat her down on her bed, and reached out with one of his hands for the phone, keeping his other one over her hands, over the wound.  He saw blood on his hand and looked back at the wounds. 

“There’s so much blood.”  He whispered to her, his whole body shaking.  She shook her head at him, but he was looking at the phone again. 

Rae’s whole body was shaking with relief, with fear, with shock.  He was here.  He had come for her.  And he was ok.  Saul hadn’t stabbed him.  Finn had won.

She felt faint, she felt nauseous, but mostly she felt safe. 

Finn fumbled with the phone and finally called 999.

“Which service do you require?”  He heard the voice on the other end of the line.

“Ambulance.  And police.”  He said frantically.  “My girlfriend’s throat’s been cut.”  He said in an urgent, panicked voice, “the guy who did it is still here.”  He added.

“I’ll put you through to the ambulance services.” 

As soon as the phone was picked up Finn gave the address and said that Rae’s throat had been cut. 

“Is she still conscious sir?”

“Yes.”  Finn answered.

“Keep pressure on the wound and don’t let her move.” 

“Don’t move.”  He said to Rae.

“Is she breathing ok?”  Finn looked at Rae, she seemed calm, lucidly watching him.

“Yes.”  He answered. 

The person on the other side of the phone started to ask another question but Finn didn’t hear it.  He felt a strange pressure on his side and turned to see Saul grinning sadistically at him.  He felt a strange feeling tugging at his inside and looked down to where Saul was touching him.  He heard Rae crying loudly, heard the voice on the other end of the phone. 

“FINN!”  She screeched as his eyes focused on the handle of the knife sticking out of his side.  He’d forgotten about Saul. 

With a huge grin Saul pulled the knife out and stood up shakily, Finn looked down at the blood slowly spreading across his shirt.  He felt nothing. 

He stood up to face Saul.  Rae was crying.

“Keep pressure on your wound.”  He said without turning to her.  Finn felt strangely focused as he watched Saul wave the knife at him.  He stepped forward, dodged a knife swipe and grabbed the wrist with both hands twisting the arm painfully until Saul dropped the knife.  He kicked it away and turned to punch Saul hard in the face.  First one punch then another and another.  Saul threw his arms up to defend himself but Finn grabbed them both and pulled them down, so he could head butt Saul brutally.  Saul felt to his knees and Finn punched down onto the top of his head. 

A dull burning throb in Finn’s side was starting to make concentrating hard.  He kneed Saul in the face and he fell back onto the floor, gurgling up at Finn through a broken nose. 

Finn stood over him and put his foot across Saul’s throat.  He saw the fear on Saul’s face and felt a savage satisfaction as he pressed harder.  Saul’s fingers scrabbled at his shoe, trying to get Finn’s foot off his throat. 

“I could kill you, you know?”  Finn said, and he heard Rae crying behind him.  “They’d call it self-defence.”  Finn pressed harder looking into Saul’s eyes as he struggled, desperately wanting to breathe.  He watched the fear in Saul’s eyes grow, dispassionately, wanting him to suffer. 

“But you get to live today cos I don’t want Rae to see that.”  He didn’t take his foot of Saul’s neck.  “But if you come near her again.  I will kill you.  Do you understand me?”  Finn asked dangerously, his tone like ice in Saul’s ears.  “I will kill you and they will never find your body.” 

Finn leaned down and punched Saul in the temple hard, knocking him out again. 

He turned to Rae, an agonising pain burning in his side now, he felt quite unsteady on his feet but he saw that she was still ok and he thought he might be hearing distant sirens.  He fell to his knees in front of her, angling his bloody side away from her so it wouldn’t scare her.  He put a hand back up to her neck and applied pressure over her own hands.

“Your exes are gonna be the death of me girl.”  He said with a faint smile.  She gasped with fear and leaned down to kiss his lips frantically. 

“He stabbed you.”  She cried. 

“I’m fine.”  Finn shook his head, “Don’t worry.  You stay still, keep pressure on your wound.”

“I’m fine.”  She answered.  Finn felt his body starting to shake, a strange panic was rising in him and the pain in his side was almost too much to hide from her.  “Finn?”  She whispered, tears making her voice hitch in her throat.  One hand on her neck, one of his hands covering it, applying pressure, her other stroked his face as if she’d never see him again, and he stroked her face too, his fear for her intensifying the panic rising in him. 

“I love you.”  She said, tears streaking down her face.  Finn felt his breath catch in his throat as he listened to her words, his heart filling with love for her.  “I love you.”  She repeated.  “And I don’t mean in a pants-shittingly terrified, ‘you just saved my life and I’m worried that you’re bleeding too much’ kind of a way.  And I don’t mean in a ‘you’re me mate’ kind of a way.”  She took a deep shivering breath, ‘I’m mean that I am in love with you.”  His eyes dropped to her mouth and then went back to her eyes, his fingers tangled in her hair, the other hand still applying pressure to the wound on the side of her neck.  “When I say I love you I mean that I’m so in love with you that I can’t see anything but you.  There’s nothing without you.”  The pain in Finn’s side was incredible now but he forced himself to focus on her words, on her.  “When I say I love you, I mean that I see that future, you know the one we’re all s’posed to do; the one with that stupid white dress and vows and squawking little Aieshas of our own driving me up the fucking wall, and sex in the kitchen on Sunday mornings before the kids wake up.  I see everything when I see you.  I love you Finn.  I love you.”  She couldn’t stop the words from leaving her mouth now.  She saw a tear fall from his eye.  “I’ve been deeply, insanely in love with you for months now.  And I haven’t said anything cos I were afraid.  And then that knife was on me throat.  And I realised that I might never get the chance to tell you how very much I love you.  And I didn’t want to die without you knowing.”  She heard noises downstairs, knew the paramedics where here.  “I should have told you sooner.  I was scared you wouldn’t feel the same way.  But I don’t care.  I mean I do… but it’s no excuse for not telling you.  I love you Finn.  I love you.”  She kissed him and there was an urgency in his kiss that told her that he had drunk in every word she had said. 

The paramedics burst into the room.  One knelt beside them.  And saw the blood pooling at Finn’s knees.  He tried to lift Finn’s shirt to see the wound.

“See to her first.”  Finn ordered.

“Sir, you’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“See to her first!”  He commanded loudly.  The paramedic’s lips pulled into a tight line and he turned to Rae. 

“Where are you hurt?”  He asked her and she took her hand off her neck. 

“To be continued.”  He said to Rae as the paramedic looked at the wound.  Finn felt his inside squelching he was shaking so hard.  His mind was starting to race… and the pain… The pain was more intense than anything he’d ever experienced.  He felt his heart hammering in his chest, felt his breaths coming in shallow fast gasps.  Felt his head swimming.

“To be continued.”  She repeated, terrified at how pale his face looked.  Finn felt the pain starting fade out.  Like a whitewash fading everything out of existence.  He struggled to focus his eyes, his mind wasn’t working properly, but he kept his eyes on Rae.  He felt confused, lost and far away somehow. 

“She’s fine.”  The paramedic said.  “Superficial wound.” 

“She fine?”  Finn asked, barely able to keep it together.

“She’s fine.”  The paramedic assured him.

“Good.”  He said and he swayed slightly, “I think… I think I might need help.”  Finn‘s mouth felt hopelessly out of time to the rest of his face.  The room spun and he hardly noticed himself collapsing.  He heard Rae calling his name and tried to tell her he was fine before he lost consciousness. 

 

 

 

 

_‘I Remember You’ by Skid Row_

 

At this time of the year there were only Mallards on the lake.  But he liked their big green heads.

He watched them peacefully floating on the water. 

The sun streamed down through the trees and he felt content, happy. 

He turned to her, saw the look of excitement, trepidation. 

_If only I’d done it differently._

_I’m so sorry._

He took her hand this time. 

This time he led her to the water.

This time he helped her take her shoes off. 

This time she got in the water with him.

Danny closed his eyes and looked towards the sun. 

_Strange how something so dangerous as the sun on your eyes, can be stopped by something so fragile as an eyelid._

What was it that had stopped her that day?

Had it been something fragile?

Something he could have broken through?

_I’m sorry Tixie._

He turned to the empty bench but he saw her there.  In his mind’s eye.  He saw her, beautiful, smiling. 

This time she’d come in with him.

Danny took his shoes off, he watched Tix take hers off.

He crossed the grass in a joyous dance because she was following him to the water’s edge. 

He saw her looking at him as he jumped into the water to be with the ducks. 

He saw her large beautiful eyes, her tantalizing smile, her cheeky nose.

He loved her so much.

He saw himself motioning for her to come in, inviting her to join him, so desperately wanting her to be beside him.

Saw her hesitate at the edge of the water. 

He watched as the fear closed in around her.  He watched himself so inarticulately cheer for her to come in.  He saw her whole body tensing up.  Watched her turn and leave.  He saw himself watching her leave.

He’d seen her walk away hundreds of times now. 

He’d watched this moment so often he knew which hairs on her head ruffled with the slight breeze.

He saw the way the material moved over her thin frame. 

Saw everything go wrong. 

Why had he not clearly seen it then?  Why had he not realised she was struggling so much?

Why had he not saved her?

Danny stopped at the edge of the water. 

He looked around at the empty gardens.  Just a few Mallards swimming in the duck pond. 

No people.

No Tix.

He watched the ducks, his feet bare, his hands on his hips, his mind replaying that day over and over again. 

He would replay it till he got it right and he saved her. 

Slowly he backed away from the water.  Danny didn’t swim with the ducks anymore. 

He sat down on the bench and closed his eyes, turning his face to the sun, his thin delicate eyelids protecting his eyes from the blinding light. 

_What could I have done different?_

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Even When I’m Sleeping’ by Leonardo’s Bride _

 

Rae fell to her knees at his side.  The paramedics moved in a strange synchronicity that she couldn’t understand.  All she could see was his eyes rolled back in his head, his pale face, his limp, lifeless body. 

“Finn?”  She cried and took his hand, terrified of how cold his fingers were.   “No. no. no. no.”  She couldn’t stop the word from leaking out of her like a poisonous gas; every time she said it, she was more certain that he was slipping a little further away. 

She watched as the paramedic lifted up his shirt and took in the knife wound, blood oozing out.  Rae’s whole body was shaking with shock, fear, grief; the whole world seemed to lose colour except for that vivid slash of red. 

“He’s in hypovolemic shock.”  The blonde paramedic said emotionlessly, but with an urgent undertone that made Rae’s heart pound even faster. 

Rae made herself look away from the wound to his face, she lowered her lips to his ear.

“I’m here Finn.  I’m right with you.”  She whispered, “I’m right here.  Don’t leave me.”  She had to stop, her throat wouldn’t work.  “Please Finn, please.  You’ve been strong for me all this time, don’t stop now.”  She stroked his hair.  “I love you Finn.  I love you.”

“I’ll get the stretcher.”  The blond was saying.

“No.  Let’s just use the blanket.”  The dark haired paramedic countered and the blond reefed the blanket from Rae’s bed.  The paramedics worked together to fold the blanket in half lengthways and lay it on the floor. 

“You stay with me Finlay, or I’ll have to follow you.  And I know how much that’ll annoy you.”  She stroked his clammy face, noticed how rapid and shallow his breathing was.  His skin was mottled, his lips blue.  She saw the blood all over her floor and realised with painfully clear understanding that Finn was going to die. 

She shook her head, trying to free herself of that thought, of that feeling, of that knowledge. She kissed his lips gently, the cold, clammy feel of his mouth scaring her even more.

“You’re scaring me Finn.”  She told him, “You have to stop scaring me now.”  He didn’t move.  “Please don’t do this.”  She whispered, pleading with him.  “I love you.”  She whispered again.

The blond paramedic knelt beside her and they moved Finn onto the blanket.  Rae watched them, unable to get her thoughts together, not even able to feel straight.  She started to breathe heavier, panic raising in her throat.  She felt frozen, rooted to the spot as they lifted Finn up using the blanket as a stretcher, taking him away from her.  Taking him to die alone somewhere.  A nothingness crept through her and her eyes became unfocused, her mind finally allowing her to tune out of the situation, right when she didn’t want to. 

“I think she’s having an acute stress reaction.”  The blond paramedic noted.

The brunette paramedic had a walkie talkie attached to his shirt pocket, he clicked it on and started speaking. 

“Report: ED heads up.”  He said slowly and clearly as he backed down the stairs carefully.  There was an acknowledgement on the other end and he looked down at Finn.  “Male approximate age 16 to 20.  Stab wound to the right upper quadrant of the abdomen.  Probable severe liver laceration.  Level 3, possible level 4 haemorrhage; hypovolemic shock present.  Probable venous, possible arterial puncture.  Patient is unconscious.”  There was an acknowledgement on the other end of the walkie talkie as the paramedics carefully, efficiently moved Finn around the corner into the kitchen. 

Rae had felt herself falling into blackness, but clawed her way out, she scrambled to her feet and ran out the door after them, nearly tripping on the stairs.  She ran into the kitchen to see them taking Finn out of the house.  She followed immediately; wherever Finn went, she went. 

They lifted him up into the ambulance and put him on the gurney, removing the blanket.  Rae took it and held onto it as the blond helped her into the back before heading to the front of the ambulance to drive. 

The brunette held out a swath of white bandaging to her.

“Put pressure on the wound.”  He said and she dropped the blanket and grabbed the sterile cloth, holding it to Finn’s side with as much pressure as she could manage.  The paramedic continued to move, preparing a bag filled with clear liquid as the ambulance, siren wailing, started to move.

“Starting IV.”  He told the walkie talkie as he inserted the needle into the back of Finn’s hand.  Once the needle was taped in place he started to squeeze the bag.  He put a cuff around Finn’s arm and pressed a button attached to a machine nearby.  They drove in silence as the cuff filled up with air, Rae pressing into Finn’s side, the paramedic pushing fluids into Finn.

“Pulse 122 bpm.”  The paramedic read off the machine, “BP 72 over 55.”  He looked down at Finn and grimaced, “marked tachypnoea, approximately 30 breaths per minute.”  He grabbed a thermometer and put it to Finns ear.  “Temperature 26 degrees Celsius, suspect hypothermia setting in.”  He put an oxygen mask over Finn’s mouth.  And started a second IV drip in Finn’s other hand. 

“How’s that pressure going?”  He asked Rae, as he looked over to ensure that she had the wound covered properly.

“I got it.”  She answered determined. 

“When was he stabbed?”

“I dunno…”  Rae said helplessly, “maybe ten minutes ago.”  He nodded and attached a clip of some sort to Finn’s forefinger.  He flicked a switch on a machine and a fast, unsteady beeping sound started.  He grabbed a blanket and put it over Finn, placing his hands under the blanket but leaving the stab wound uncovered.

“Alright, I got it now.”  He leaned over and applied pressure to the wound, leaving Rae sitting, staring at Finn’s face. 

“Is he gonna die?”  She felt so lost, so terrified of the answer.

“It’s too soon to tell.”  The paramedic replied in an efficient tone.  He looked up and saw her horrified face, “Look, I’m in my foundation year as a doctor, next year I can register to practice.  This was my first job, and I still do it to make some money, while I finish me qualifications.”  He explained, “I just want you to know, I’ve seen worse as a paramedic and as a trainee doctor.  Ok?”  She nodded. 

“Did they survive?”  He pulled his lips into a grim line.

“Not all of them.” 

The ambulance stopped and Rae looked up from Finn’s face as a nurse opened the door to the ambulance.  They moved the gurney out into the bright light.  Rae looked over at the doors of the emergency department as she picked up the blood stained blanket and dropped out of the ambulance, fear and numbness fighting for control over her exhausted body and mind.  A doctor came out to the gurney at a rush.  She looked down at the wound.

“Prep the CT room.  Let’s see what’s bleeding in there.”  She ordered and an orderly rushed off, “let’s prep for a transfusion as well, get him stabilised.  Bring me O type…”  Rae couldn’t hear what they were saying.  She just clung to his hand as they wheeled him in, staring at his face, willing him to give her a sign that he was gonna make it.  Willing him to just open his eyes and see her.  Just even flutter them a little.  Just show any signs of life at all. 

They stopped her at the door to the theatre rooms and she stared through the window as the wheeled him away.  She felt the fear and panic well up inside of her and finally the sobbing overtook her.  She leaned against the wall and wept, holding the blood stained blanket to her chest. 

A nurse looked over and noticed that she was covered in blood and only wearing a bra.  She opened the supplies cupboard and took out a towel, some disinfectant and a hospital gown. 

“Come on dear.”  She said as she gently guided Rae to the nurses’ bathroom. 

It took the nurse a long time to convince Rae to let go of the blanket.  She held it as if letting go of it would mean that Finn died.  But the nurse was gentle and kind and patient and she soothed that fear away.  She tutted sympathetically as she started to clean Rae’s face for her.

“You took quite a blow to the face.”  She said as she gently wiped the bruising along her cheek.  “I’m guessing some man who doesn’t deserve you did this.”  Rae nodded her head slowly.  “Not that man they wheeled in with you?”  She asked gently, expecting her to say yes.  But she shook her head.

“Not him.  I had a stalker.”  She said, feeling more exhausted and drained than she ever had.  “He saved my life.”  Rae lowered her eyes, “and he’s probably gonna die.”

“Oh.  Don’t worry love, they work wonders here.”  The nurse consoled and gently wiped the blood from Rae’s painfully split lip.  But Rae didn’t wince.  Her mind was occupied with Finn.

“I wish I knew what was happening to him.”  She looked at the door, frantic panic starting to rise inside of her.

“You’ll find out soon enough.”  The nurse soothed. 

“But I love him.”  Rae said softly, “and if he dies…”  She started to cry and the nurse stroked her hair gently.

“You can’t think like that.”  The nurse said with a gentle, but firm voice.  “It’s your job to think that he’s going to make it.  And to think of all the days you’ll have after this one, together.”  Rae nodded, still crying.  The nurse moved down to her neck and winced.

“Oh dear.”  She muttered, “I’ll need to dress these.”

“They’re superficial.”  Rae said disinterested in her own wounds.  “Paramedic said so.”

“Well to a paramedic they would be, but to the rest of us, these are pretty nasty.  And very painful I’d wager.”  She looked closer.  “God any deeper and they’d have been taking you to the morgue.”  She said softly.  “You’re very lucky.”  She breathed.  “These definitely need dressing.  Let’s take you to a room.”

 

 

 

_‘This Love’ by Pantera_

Liam plonked down on the bench and put his head in his hands as the police officer shut and locked the door to his holding cell. 

Drunk and disorderly conduct, vandalism, public urination, resisting arrest. 

He scoffed and lit up a cigarette.  He’d been here before.  In a few minutes they’d let him call his mum.  She’d be pissed off, but he’d be home in no time. 

He yawned and leaned back against the wall, his stomach still aching, his bruises were slowly healing, so they didn’t give him as much trouble as they had.

Sometimes he thought about getting revenge on Finn.  In a fair fight, where he didn’t have to worry about Rae’s safety, he’d beat the shit out of that twat. 

He often thought about Rae and felt guilty beyond anything he’d felt before.  He’d seen her around a few times since then, and she seemed to have healed up fine.  Still, who does that to someone they love?

Liam was starting to hate himself more and more every day.

_Everything I touch turns to shit_

_But that’s how I like it._

_I like broken fucked up things._

_So I am surrounded by limp and dying things._

_And I hate that._

_But I still wouldn’t change.  Not for anyone._

_What I really want is permanence._

_I want something beautiful that stays that way, no matter how many times I fuck it up._

_That’s why it’s gotta be Rae._

_She so strong she can take anything._

The officer came to offer him to call someone. 

Liam gave him a smug grin and blew smoke in his direction. 

He wandered down the corridors with the officer looking in the other holding cells, there weren’t many others being held at the moment.

When they reached the phone, Liam picked it up immediately and started dialling his home number.  He looked around at the officers doing their work, chatting over tea and generally ignoring him while his number rang.  He waited for her to pick up.

“Goddamnit woman.”  He muttered as the phone rang out.  He hung up and tried another number. 

“Hello.”  It was a male voice.

“Is Chloe there?”

“I’ll get her.”  There was a sound of the phone being put down and Liam scanned the officers again, waiting for her to pick up.

“Hello?” 

“Chloe, it’s Liam.”  There was silence.  “Don’t hang up.”  He said urgently. 

“How did you get my number?”

“Phone book.”  He had memorised it just after they’d first talked; he liked to be able to contact his friends. 

“Why are you ringing?”  She sounded unimpressed, but there was a tiny glint of curiosity, and that was his way in. 

“I got myself arrested.”  He grinned down the phone, “Come bail me out, I’ll pay you back.”

“You got arrested?  Why?”

“Just being a lad.  Come get me.”

“No.”  She said brutally.

“Chlo?  C’mon…”

“You hit my best mate!”  Her voice rose in anger and he scrunched his eyebrows.

“But that were an accident.”

“You did worse things than that to her.”

“No I didn’t.”

“I’m not talking to you about this Liam.  Or anything else.”  She hung up the phone before he had chance to reply.  He looked up at the officer who was grinning knowingly at him.

“Looks like you’re spending the night here then.”  He motioned for Liam to walk in front of him and Liam rolled his eyes and headed back to the cells. 

He had never had to spend the night before. 

The door clanged shut again and he heard the lock clink and Liam suddenly became aware of how utterly alone he was. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Love Is Blindness’ by U2 _

 

Her hand was shaking as she picked up the receiver and put her money in the slot. 

She had required 5 stitches on her stomach and they had taped up the wounds on her neck.  And her wounds were stinging and pulling and annoying. 

“Hello.”  The minute she heard his voice she started to cry again. 

“Is that… is that Rae?”  He asked, his voice edged with deep concern.

“It’s Finn.”  Her voice cracked pitifully, barely able to make a sound anymore.  Today had been too much, and she had been sitting alone at the hospital for the last hour before she had remembered she should call Gary. 

“Where are you?”  His voice filled with alarm now.

“Hospital.”

“I’m coming.”

Rae hung up the phone and picked it back up, putting another coin in. 

“Heya.”

“Archie.”  She couldn’t find the words, her voice still thick with tears.

“What’s wrong Rae?”  She could practically hear the way his brows where furrowing.

“Finn.”  She said softly.

“You didn’t break up again?”

“No.”  She whimpered, “I think he’s dying or already dead.”  She whispered, her terror making her not able to stop, “He lost so much blood Archie.  I don’t know what to do.” 

“Oh shit.”  He breathed.  “Are you at the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“I’m coming.”

“Ok.”

“Just stay safe till I get there ok?”

“Alright.”  She cried miserably.  She hung up the phone and tried Chloe, but the number was engaged.  Izzy was already here, and Chop would be too.  She supposed she could go and find them, but she just felt too exhausted and she had to wait here for Finn.  

She sat staring at the clock ticking by seconds, her whole body alternating between being too tried to feel anything, to panicked weeping and back again.  When Gary rushed in, Janice not far behind, she was crying, brutally blaming herself for Finn’s death in her mind. 

Gary instantly put his arms around her, crouching down in front of her.  Janice went up to the nurse’s station to ask for news, but they would only give news to his family.  Rae felt herself calming as soon as Gary put his arms around her, but then she looked down at the blood under her nails and knew it was Finn’s from when she’d been putting pressure on his wound.  She started to sob again, slow exhausted sobs. 

“What happened?’  He asked her as he gently let her go to sit beside her, putting his arm back around her shoulders.  But she just kept looking at her hands, crying.  Gary looked down and saw her nails and recognised that there was blood under them. 

“What happened?”  He asked more urgently. 

“It’s my fault.”  She said, “If I’d o’ just believed him that the stalker were serious.”  She wiped her face with the back of her hand and Janice fished some tissues out of her bag before sitting down on the other side of her, gently rubbing her back.

“I can guarantee you it’s not your fault.”  Gary said, noticing the dressings on her neck, the bruising on her face, the split lip.  Janice noticed that she was wearing a hospital gown and wondered what had happened to her clothes.

“If I’d just let Saul have me.  I wouldn’t have been there and Finn wouldn’t have been stabbed.  And I know he’s dead.  There was so much blood.”

“Oh my god.”  Janice whispered.  Gary looked down at his shoes, worry taking over him.  He took a few deep breaths and looked back up at her.  “This is no one’s fault but the stalker’s.”  He said firmly, “I’m not in the business of blaming the victim Rae.  You did nothing wrong.”  He pulled her into his arms again and stroked her hair soothingly.  Rae sobbed loudly, the panic rising in her chest again.  Gary looked over to Janice who was still rubbing Rae’s back. 

“I have to see him.”  She cried suddenly frantic.  “Gary, I have to see him again.”  She looked over at the doors that they’d taken him through.  “I have to see him.”  She said again, standing up.  Gary stood up beside her and tried to gentle dissuade her. 

And then Archie was there, Chloe rushed straight to Rae and threw her arms around her.  Rae clung to Chloe.

“What happened babe?”  She asked, as Archie put his arms around both of them and Gary took a moment to compose himself before heading to the nurses’ station with Janice. 

“Saul.”  She cried And Chloe’s eyes widened in understanding, she squeezed Rae tighter.

“What did he do?”  Chloe looked at Rae’s face, her eyes unwillingly dropping to the dressings on her throat. 

“He came to take me… and he were hurting me… and Finn saved my life.”  Rae said, and Chloe took her face between her hands, “And he stabbed Finn, and Finn was bleeding out.” 

“It’s alright Rae.”  She said, “It’s alright.”  She kissed her forehead and wrapped her back in her arms. 

“Oh fuck.”  Archie barely breathed.  He pulled the two girls over to the seats and they sat down, Rae in between them. 

“There was so much blood.  And I think he was dying… Chlo…”  Rae looked at her, “I think he’s dying.”

“Finn is strong.”  Chloe said, “He will be fine.  I know it.” 

“We’ve got a little bit of news.”  Janice said as she returned, “He was stabbed in the liver and they gave him a transfusion and are deciding what to do about the bleeding.” 

“Deciding?”  Rae stood up again, “I have to see him.”  She whispered, “It’s my fault.”

“Do you think she’s in a bit o’ shock?”  Archie breathed to Chloe and Chloe nodded.

“It’s a lot to go through innit?”  She said, “And it’s not over till she knows Finn’s ok.”  Gary took Rae by the shoulders and sat her down.

“Rest.”  He ordered, reminding her so painfully of Finn that she was struck numb.  She leaned back in the seat as Janice went to get drinks for everyone.

Archie took Rae’s hand and tried not to look at the dressings on her neck.  Chloe tried not to notice that she was wearing a hospital gown instead of her own top.  Gary sat down next to Chloe.  They sat in silence for some time.

“Oh my god.”  Rae suddenly said as Janice returned with a tray of drinks.  “I left Saul in me house with the doors unlocked.”  She shook her head, “I don’t even know if the police came.” 

“I’ll go.”  Janice said softly as everyone started to respond.  “’ll drop by the police station on the way and see if they’ve been.”  She said to Gary’s worried face, “I’ll be perfectly safe.”

“Thank you.”  Rae reached out for Janice’s hand and Janice bent down to kiss her on the cheek. 

“I’ll be as quick as I can.”  She gave the packet of tissues from her bag to Chloe and left.

Rae watched her leave and turned back to the doors to where Finn was.  Nothing.  They could only wait. 

The emergency department waiting room was eerily quiet.  There were few people waiting, and plenty of staff to see them.  Even the nurses commented on how quiet it was as they stood chatting at the nurses’ station. 

“Hey did you hear, it’s Tutulu’s birthday today?”  Rae overheard one of the nurses say and she looked over with tired eyes.

“We should get her a cake or something to wish her happy birthday.”  The nurse that had seen to Rae’s wounds said jovially. 

“Definitely!  Gotta enjoy the quiet while we can!” 

Rae lowered her eyes, thinking how weird it was that life went on all around her while Finn was possibly dying just beyond those doors. 

She wondered how her life could possibly go on if his didn’t. 

They waited. 

Eventually, the doctor Rae had first seen treating Finn came out of the doors and looked around the waiting room.  Rae stood up and she walked over to them.

“I’m doctor Kraus.”  She said warmly, “We’ve managed to close up the bleeding veins and stabilise him.  However he did lose a lot of blood and he is still unconscious.”

“Can I see him?”  Rae pleaded.

“Yes, but only for a few minutes.  Then I suggest you go home, get some rest, and with any luck he’ll be awake tomorrow.”

“So he’s not in danger?”  Gary asked urgently.  Dr Kraus looked him and cocked her head to the side in a ‘maybe’ gesture.

“The cut was fairly clean so it was easy to close the broken veins and we think we got all of them.  He’s young and relatively fit, so he should heal well.  But there was a lot of blood loss and his body was in shock for a long time and his liver was substantially damaged… but the liver is excellent at healing itself.”  She added, “If I were forced to choose an organ to be stabbed in, I’d choose the liver.”  She smiled reassuringly.

“What’s the best and worst case scenario?”  Gary insisted.

“Alright, best case scenario, the surgery was a complete success, we didn’t miss anything and there were no infections introduced to the wound, the blood transfusions did their job, he heals as quickly as a healthy person his age should and he’ll be out of hospital in a few days, with daily wound management appointments for a few weeks and regular blood tests to check liver function for the next few months.”  She took a deep breath, “worst case scenario, the blood loss, prolonged hypovolemic shock and hypothermia he’s suffered is too much for his system.  Or an infection was introduced to the wound site and his system is too weakened to fight it.  Both of these could result in death or permanent impairment.”  She looked at Gary, measuring his response, “I’m hopeful though for a full recovery.”  She said honestly, “and I believe the surgery was a success.”  She smiled again, “He’s stable at the moment, and given the trauma he’s been through, that’s really good news.” 

“How’d he get hypothermia?”  Rae asked confused and scared and wondering what had happened to her Finn.

“Severe blood loss.”  Dr Kraus answered factually.  “So shall I show you to his room?”  She asked Rae.  Rae took Gary’s hand and nodded.  Dr Kraus led them through the doors, Archie and Chloe watching them go. 

Rae walked as if her body was wrapped in wool, as if everything was muted and distant.  When she entered his room, she let go of Gary’s hands and felt the focus her mind, her eyes and her body had lacked over the last few hours return, on a single point.  Him.  She walked, almost calmly to him and took his hand lovingly. 

He was still unconscious, with a tube under his nose for oxygen, a drip attached to his other hand, but the cannula was still in the hand she held, and the little clamp on his index finger, monitoring his heart activity.  It no longer thumped out a fast erratic rhythm.  No.  Rae breathed a deep sigh of relief.  The machine was beeping a slow steady rhythm.  Gary stood at the foot of his bed looking down at his son, while Rae gently stroked his hair. 

She noticed that his fingers were warmer now, but still not warm enough, and the colour was back in his face, but still not back to normal, his lips weren’t blue, but they weren’t their usual pink tone.  Even so, she felt tears of relief on her cheeks and she buried her face carefully into his neck smelling his scent painfully; she had been so sure he had died, and she stayed there as she let that fear wash through her. 

She kissed his neck and then kissed his lips gently.  She let their foreheads touch and looked at his face.

“I love you.”  She whispered to him, not caring that Gary was there.  “I don’t know how much you heard me say before, on account o’ you bleeding to near death.”  She stroked his face, “But I told you in no uncertain terms Finn Nelson, that I’m in love with you.”  She kissed his lips again, “and you told me to be continued.  That’s a promise that you have to keep.  That’s the rules.”  She pulled back and looked at his closed eyes, “so when I come back tomorrow, you will be awake, and you’ll kiss me, and tell me that we’re forever and that everything’s alright.  Or else I will be very cross at you.”  She kissed his lips, “I’m lying.”  She said, “I won’t be cross at you.”  She sucked her bottom lip and stroked his hair, “but I’ll be much happier when you come back to me.  So… do try your hardest.  Cos this stuff is scaring the hell outta me Finn, and I need you.”  She kissed his forehead.  “I love you.”  She heard Gary sniff and looked up at him.  He wiped his face and took a deep breath. 

“I never thought I’d see him like this.”  Gary walked around the bed and sat in the chair, “Oh Finn it’s been a tough couple o’ months lad.”  He carefully took Finn’s hand, not wanting to disturb his drip.  “You gotta be tougher than them though.”  Rae watched him as he reached up and stroked Finn’s hair in the kind of way that only a parent did.  She carefully reached over Finn and Gary took her other hand momentarily, before they both turned back to Finn, Rae’s hand going back to his face. 

“You should probably head home.”  Dr Kraus said softly.

“I love you son.”  Gary stood up and kissed Finn’s forehead, before heading to the door, his whole body stiff with emotion. 

Rae lingered, drinking in his face, the colour seeming to be better than when they first came in.  She smiled at the thought that he was getting well in front of her eyes.  She took a picture of him and her together out of her purse and left it on the side for him.  Touched his cheek again and left.

 

 

“Where are you staying tonight?”  Gary asked her.

“I can’t go back home.”  She responded numbly.

“You got our home too, remember.”  She smiled sadly at him and he put his arm over her shoulders protectively.  “C’mon.”  He led her out to Archie and Chloe. 

She told them how he’d improved as they walked to the car park. 

She barely remembered hugging them goodbye, the car ride home, walking up the stairs to his room.

But the crushing sense of aloneness descending on her like vultures when she stood in his room alone. 

The negative things the doctor said came back to her now. 

_The blood loss, prolonged hypovolemic shock and hypothermia he’s suffered is too much for his system._

_Or an infection was introduced to the wound site and his system is too weakened to fight it._

_Both of these could result in death or permanent impairment._

She let her fingers gently touch the pillow he’d given her.  She kicked off her shoes and carefully laid down in the bed.  She took Finn’s pillow into her arms, one end of it pushed against her face, breathing him in.  She stared at the door.

She felt like crying. 

But her exhausted body had no more energy for that. 

It was night, and she hadn’t eaten all day.

She’d been physically, mentally and sexually assaulted by a guy she had been trying to forget for months. 

And the love of her life laid in a hospital bed tonight, with his insides sliced up because she went to a party with Saul all those months ago. 

Because she had been so flattered by him saying she looked nice. 

Because she had been frigid and said no to him so he got obsessed. 

Because she had been so strong when she came for Chloe, so he wanted her even more. 

Because she hadn’t taken the threat seriously. 

Because she hadn’t been able to get him off quick enough to be gone before Finn got there. 

Because she had been so inept at saving him with what was a truly simple plan.

All the mistakes she had made over the months haunted her. 

She could see a long line of cause and effect. 

And she was always the cause.

And the effect was always enacted out upon Finn. 

She fell asleep with these thoughts whirring in her mind, her body simply too exhausted to keep going. 

 

 

 

 

_‘Big Empty’ by Stone Temple Pilots_

 

She picked up the elephant and the comb and put them on the coffee table.  The food she put in the bin.  She looked at the broken television and cleaned up the glass but left the television where it lay.  She walked up the stairs, looking for Rae’s room.

Janice looked at the stained carpet.  It was more blood than she’d ever seen.  She sorted through the airing cupboard until she found everything she needed and started the cleaning up process; Rae was not coming home to this. 

She walked back in and saw Rae’s beautiful diamond necklace under the edge of her bed.  She picked it up and left it on Rae’s bedside table for her to find later.  She saw that the chain was broken, and could imagine what had happened. 

She settled down onto her hands and knees and started to slowly clean the carpet.  While she scrubbed, she reflected on her growing affections for the Nelson men.  Finn was like a little brother to her in many ways.  She was comfortable with how their friendship had grown, and how close she was becoming with Rae.  It was Nelson Senior; Gary, that was the problem.  Her feelings for him were a strange thing.  She knew he was off bounds, so she felt completely able to maintain the appropriate distance, but still she found him undeniably attractive.  She grunted in frustration and decided that she probably needed to find a flat of her own if she were to stay in Stamford. 

It took a long time to slowly work through the blood and her muscles were aching by the time she’d finished.  She’d need to come back again tomorrow to scrub it up again; stains like these had a nasty habit of reappearing. 

She took the bucket and emptied it into Rae’s sink and started cleaning out the cloths and scrubbing brushes and bucket and sink, and everything that had been touched by blood with disinfectant. 

She stopped, thinking she’d heard a noise downstairs.  She turned off the tap to listen, leaving the ensuite and walking into Rae’s room to stare at the top of the stairs. 

She waited, tense and afraid.  But there was nothing.  No more sound.  She went to turn away and then heard a creak on the stairs.  Her heart jumped into her throat, and when his head and shoulders appeared coming up the stairs she nearly jumped out of her skin, until she realised it was Gary. 

“Hi.”  He grinned.  “You’d been a while, I was getting worried.”  She sat down on Rae’s bed shaking her head.

“You scared the hell outta me!”

“I’m sorry.”  He said with a sad smile.  He looked down at the massive area of wet carpet Janice had scrubbed.  “Oh.”  He realised that this represented his son’s blood.

“How is he?”  She asked, removing her rubber gloves.

“Alive.”  Gary said as he sat on Rae’s chair.  “Rae’s staying at our place.”

“Good.  I wouldn’t want her staying alone here.”  Janice shuddered at the thought.

“What’d the police say?”  He asked her cautiously, fearing the worst. 

“He wasn’t here when they got here.”

“Goddamnit.”  He said under his breath.

“But you know, they’ll arrest him if they see him.”  She said grimly.

“Oh how comforting.”  Gary said sarcastically, he wiped his face, “let me take you home.”  He asked softly, “I’ll come and help you clean up again tomorrow.”  He nodded at her, “we can leave my car or your car here tonight.  Make the place look lived in.”

“Finn’s bike is outside too.”  Janice noted.  She stood up slowly, “ok, we’ll leave my shitbox.”  Gary grinned slightly, hearing Janice swear was a rare treat.  She grabbed her bag and headed for the door, Gary stood up as she passed him, and she turned to him.  “Are you ok?”  She rubbed his arm slightly, “I mean…” she shook her head, words failing her.  Gary leaned against the doorframe and sighed.

“No.”  He answered, “I won’t be ok till Finn’s in the clear.”  She sighed sympathetically and drew him into a supportive hug.  There was a vulnerability, a need in him; she felt it as he wrapped his arms around her.  She held her breath, suddenly aware of her own sexual desire for him.  She slowly pushed it down.  Not only was he not available, but this was not the time to discuss it in any way shape or form anyway.  She moved to pull out of the hug and he pulled back slowly, his face close to hers.  He stopped and turned his face to her, their lips just inches apart.  He licked his lips slightly as he looked into her eyes and then down at her lips.  They both moved slightly closer, she saw the desire in his eyes.  But then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he pulled away.  She took a shaky breath in and looked away, running her hand over her face. 

“I’m sorry Miss Harcourt.”  He said softly, “I’m not myself today.”  But when she turned to look at him to tell him it was fine, she saw that desire still in his eyes. 

“Don’t worry.”  She somehow managed to say.  He nodded, his eyes not leaving her face.  They stayed like that for some time, just looking at each other. 

“I think it’s probably time to go.”  He said as if he truly did not want to. 

“Yeah.”  She answered in the same tone, and she could see by the look on his face that he’d registered that tone.  Most guys she knew missed subtle cues from women.  But not Gary Nelson.  He nodded and looked at the floor.  She gathered herself and slowly left the room, Gary following. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Gorecki’ by Lamb _

 

“You’re Rae?”  The nurse said to her and Rae nodded, confused as to how the nurse knew her name. 

“There’s still another hour until visiting times.”  She shook her head.

“I know.”  Rae shrugged, “but I have to be here.”

“He woke up at about 3am this morning, had a fairly severe panic attack and was sure you’d died of a slit throat.”  The nurse’s eyes dropped to the dressing on Rae’s neck.  “It wasn’t until one of the nurses noticed the photograph on the side and gave it to him that he calmed down.  He said he knew that you must have left it for him, so he knew you were alright.”  She smiled grimly.  “He tore a few stitches.  But there doesn’t seem to be any other damage.”  She sighed, “He’s sleeping.  But you better go through.  I think he’d be better off if you’re there when he wakes up.”

Rae paused at the door and watched him as he slept peacefully.  She went to him and took his hand, stroking his hair.  She saw the photograph on the bed beside his other hand.  

“I’m here Finn.”  She whispered as she pulled up a seat and took his hand again.  She kissed his lips and his forehead before sitting down.  “The bed don’t feel right without you in it.”  She said softly.  “I miss you so much.”  She stroked his face.  “The nurses said you woke up last night.  I wish I’d been here, but they wouldn’t let me stay.”  She ran her fingertips down his cheek and he stirred.  She stopped moving and held her breath.  His eyes fluttered, as if he wanted to open them but was too tired or too weak to. 

“Shhh.”  She soothed him, “Sleep.  Rest.”  His eyes opened and looked to her, a small smile kissed his mouth and he rose his hand to touch her face.  And she knew peace finally.  Not since Saul had grabbed her yesterday morning had she known peace.  And now that gentle touch of her face granted her freedom from Saul’s tyranny.  She kissed his fingertips and stared lovingly at him.

“I love you.”  She whispered to his exhausted looking face, and his smile broadened.  She saw him swallow with difficulty, and she stood up, still holding his hand.  “I’ll get you water.”  The nurses had left a pitcher and glass beside the bed and she poured a cup, he tried to sit up but grunted with pain.

“Don’t move.”  She reached down and pressed the buttons on the bed, slowly raising just the top section of the bed at a seating angle until Finn was sitting comfortably.  “We figured it out when mum where in hospital.  Just messing about with it.”  She smiled shyly and held the glass up to his lips.  He drank the whole glass and turned his eyes back to the pitcher.  She poured him another glass and he drank all of that too.  He drank half of the third glass before he was feeling less dry.

“Sorry that I scared you Mrs Nelson.”  He said weakly.  She felt a sob hitch at her breath but she repressed it and leaned in to kiss Finn, taking his face in her hands.  It felt so good to be kissing him and for him to be responding.  She leaned her forehead against his, still holding his face and breathed him in.

“Don’t do it again.”  She admonished jokingly. 

“I wouldn’t want to make you cross.”

“What?”  She asked him, astonished to hear him saying back to her what she had said to him last night when he was unconscious.

“What?”  He asked, clearly unaware of what she had said.

“Nothing.  I just… I said that I’d be cross at you if you didn’t wake up today.”  She stroked his face.  “You were unconscious so…”  She shook her head, “You couldn’t have heard me.”

“Maybe I just know what’s in you, girl.”  He smiled and touched her face, his fingertips tracing along her lips and then down to her neck.  His face grew serious when he saw the dressings. 

“I thought you were gonna die in front o’ me.”  He said with so much fear on his face that Rae had to close her eyes for a moment to escape it.  “It were my fault.”  He coughed slightly and she got him the water again.  He drank another glass, “Thank you.”  He looked up into her eyes, “can you ever forgive me.”

“I don’t understand what you’re blaming yourself for.”

“Leaving you alone.  Punching him when he had a knife to your throat!  But I didn’t see it and so I didn’t… I didn’t realise how much danger you was in.  I nearly got you killed.”  Rae shook her head in response to his words.

“The only person that gets any blame in all of this is Saul.”  Rae echoed Gary’s words.  He looked back down at her neck.

“I’m glad you took the necklace off while you’re healing.”  He put his fingertip where the pendant normally was.  “I want you to know that.”  He remembered how adamant he’d been that she never take it off, but this was far more important than that. 

“He cut it from my neck.”  She said sadly, “it’s broken.”  Finn looked at the wall for a moment and he looked more tired than ever.

“Let’s not think about that now.”

“I’ll get it fixed.”  He said immutably.  “Don’t worry.  

“Good.”  She smiled happier.  But still worried about how tired he looked.  He put his hand up to her face.

“So…” he smiled, his face a little paler than she’d like.  He looked down and took a deep breath.  “We both know I’m not so good at speaking still.”  He grinned, “But I’m trying, and you always treat me like the attempt is as good as the real thing.”  He smiled appreciatively at her.  “I’d do anything for you.  Even learn to speak.”  He looked down and breathed out nervously.  He bit his bottom lip as he looked back up at her.  “You talked about seeing our future.”  He said softly, he could feel the energy flowing between them, like their souls were connected. 

“You’re too unwell to talk about this now.”  She fretted.

“You should know by now girl that when I say ‘to be continued’ I mean to be continued.”  He stroked her face, “I mean to talk to you about this now.  I want to make sure that we are crystal clear on all o’ this.”  Rae felt a small spike of fear in her stomach.  What if he didn’t feel the same way?  She took a deep breath and knew that he did.  She leaned forward and he stroked her hair, she nodded that she was ready to listen now. 

“So, the future.”  He repeated, “I see things a little differently to you, cos I got university and travel on my list as well as the stupid tuxedo and vows and little Raes and mini Finns and sex every night not just Sunday bloody mornings!”  She laughed and he grinned, not able to laugh for the pain in his stomach.  “I see me getting in trouble when I tell our kids all the crazy shit we got up to, you telling me not to give ‘em ideas.”  They shared a smile.  “I don’t see a future for me without you in it.”  He said shyly, “Every time I look at you Rae… I know.”  He looked down again, trying to get his nerves under control before raising his eyes to hers again “I’ve known for so long.”  He took his time to drink her in, “I’m home.”  He kissed her lips, “You are my world, you are my forever.  I love you Rae Earl.  And I always will.”  

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Plush’ by Stone Temple Pilots _

 

“It’s strange being in here without Finn.”  Archie lamented and Chloe shot him an annoyed glare.  “Sorry.”  He muttered and looked over at Rae. 

“It’s alright.”  She sat on the floor with them, his pillow hugged to her chest.  “He looked much better today.”

“How long do they think he’ll be in there?”

“Another couple o’ days they think.”  Rae said glumly, “I think the second bleed scared ‘em all.”

“Second bleed?”  Archie face noticeably paled.

“Oh.”  Rae had forgotten that they were getting their news from her, and didn’t know everything that had happened over the past few days.  “He tore a bunch o’ stitches.  They thought it was just the external ones.  But it were some of the internal ones as well.  Started off a little bit of a bleed inside.  Only a small one mind.”  She said, convincing herself as much as them that he was ok, “they had to do a second surgery to find it, cos it weren’t stopping on its own.”

“Stopping on its own?”  Chloe asked.

“Aye, apparently the liver heals itself real good.”  Rae shrugged, “doctor said in a lot o’ cases they just stabilise you and let the liver work its magic.  But in Finn’s case the damage was too much and they had to go in.”  Rae hugged the pillow closer, “We was lucky though cos Dr Kraus is a visiting surgeon from London.  Expert on livers.”  Rae looked at both of them, “if she hadn’t been there Finn might o’ died.” 

“That is so lucky.”  Chloe breathed.

“I said so too.  But she just said that she always here once a month.  Just good timing.” 

“So they think he’s stopped bleeding now?”  Archie asked tentatively.

“Aye.”  Rae nodded slowly, “Dr Kraus said she’s confident that he’s on the mend now.”

“Do you think he is?”  Archie persisted, knowing Rae was a good judge of Finn’s state of being.

“Well he was being right proper cheeky bastard today, so I think probably.”  She grinned, “And he’s not so pale anymore and he feels warm all the time again.”  She sucked her bottom lip, “it were scary when he were cold.” 

“Can we visit yet?”  Archie looked scared still; like he’d only believe his best mate was ok if he could see it with his own eyes. 

“Still just family allowed.”  She said with an apologetic face.

“Then why do they let you in?”  Chloe asked, “I mean… technically you’re not family.”  She fumbled.

“The hospital has me listed as his next o’ kin.”  Rae shrugged, “I think he must o’ put me as it when he signed all the forms to see Kester.”  She let the pillow drop a little from her mouth, “I think the psychiatric ward shares records with the rest o’ the hospital.”  She mused.

“You’d think so.”  Archie reasoned.

“It were right awkward though when they was asking me for my thoughts about how long to wait with the bleed, with Finn’s dad sitting there…”

“Oh god.”  Chloe said aghast.

“Aye.”  Rae breathed, “I had no idea I were his next o’ kin.  And Gary wanted a say on how long they waited, but they was having none of it.”  She shook her head, “he put me down as the person to make his medical decisions for him.”  Rae marvelled.

“That’s love.”  Archie grinned slightly and Rae couldn’t help but smile. 

“I dunno… but I am glad that they’re limiting visitors.  I’m sorry guys.  But he’s so weak.”  She shook her head, “I watch him sleep for most of me visits.”  She pulled the pillow back up to her mouth, “and he’s still in a lot o’ pain.”

“It’s probably for the best.”  Chloe agreed. 

“Sleeping is good but.  Means he’s healing.”  Archie reassured Rae.

“That’s what the nurses say.  But I dunno.  It’s so strange to see him like this.”  She sighed, “But he is definitely getting better, so that’s what I’m holding on to.” 

“Have you told him that they haven’t found Saul?”  Chloe asked.  She felt so guilty about ever introducing Rae to those guys.  All the damage that group of men had done…

“No.”  Rae said firmly, “and I won’t tell him till he’s all healed up.  He’d probably bust all his stitches and insist on being with me at all times if he knew.  He needs to focus on healing.”

“Yeah I don’t think we should tell him for a bit.”  Archie agreed, “If we just make an effort to make sure you’re not left long Rae, you should be safe.”

“I don’t think he’s coming back for me.”  Rae thought of what Finn had said, how terrifying he had been in that moment.  She had completely believed him that he would and could kill Saul.

“Well I hope not.”  Chloe reached over and put her hand on Rae’s thigh, “I’d hate it if something happened to you.”

“I think it’s safe to say a lot o’ people would.”  He agreed. 

“Have you been back?”  Chloe asked gingerly.

“No.”  Rae shook her head, “I just can’t.  And I don’t wanna be alone so here is best.  Gary and Janice have been real good about everything.  Making sure there’s always someone around.”

“Well don’t forget you can make us hang around with you.”  Archie grinned.

“I s’pose we’ll put up with it.”  Chloe rolled her eyes and laughed lightly.

“It’s the nights that are the worst I think.”  Rae said, “Sleeping in his room alone.”

“We can stay here tonight!”  Archie proffered and Chloe nodded her agreement. 

“Thanks guys.”

“So Archie,” Chloe sensed the time had come for a topic change, “Tell me all about Tom.”

“He’s super sexy.”  Archie bragged and the two girls instantly started to giggle, “And he’s got a pretty perfect cock.  And… he likes rough kinky sex…”

“Wait.”  Chloe laughed, “You’re having rough kinky sex?”

“Yeah, what?”

“You?  I always thought you was a bit vanilla Arch!”

“Aye she says that to the gay fellah!” 

“What is vanilla in the gay world?”  Rae said, “Cos it can’t be missionary penis in a vagina now can it?”

“I don’t even know…”  Archie laughed.

“Missionary anal.”  Chloe said with a straight face. 

“Can you imagine missionaries doing anal?”  Rae laughed.  They laughed more than the thought deserved; they laughed to let go off the anxiousness of the past few days.  Finn seemed to be out of the woods, Rae was being seemingly successful at repressing all thoughts regarding Saul and they had all dodged a bullet.  The relief they all felt was palpable

 

 

 

 

_‘The Hearts Filthy Lesson’ by David Bowie_

 

Rae sat silently looking at Kester, not even sure where to start.  Kester noted the bruise on her face and the split lip, clearly a few days old, but painful looking nonetheless. 

“The last few weeks have been quite hard.”  Her voice was almost silent, not even sure where to start.  “I know we’ve been working on self-soothing techniques and stuff.”  She bit the inside of her mouth slowly, “but I really wanna talk about the last few weeks.”

“Of course.”  Kester leaned forward, “you can always talk about anything you want here.”

“I just wanted to stay focused on self-soothing cos it were helping so much.”  She looked down at her fingers and picked at the skin slowly.  “I think that Finn were right about Phillip.”  She said softly.  “I were flattered by the idea, but I didn’t really believe it.  And I wanted to not believe it, cos I wanted to believe that me writing were good and I trusted his opinion on it.  But not if he just wants to get at me, you know?”  She looked up at Kester, “plus jealous Finn is kinda cute, so I let it go on too long.  And I hurt him.”

“Jealousy is very much a sign of his own self esteem issues.  And a lot of men use it as means of controlling their partners.”  Kester said softly.

“Yeah but Finn never did that.  He never really asked me to stop talking to Phil.  Never tried to control me actions.  Nothing like that.”  Rae felt ashamed, “he just wanted me to make it clear to Phil that I wasn’t interested.”

“And you feel that you didn’t do that?”

“No I didn’t.”  Rae dug her nails underneath each other painfully.  “I guess, I never really believed that Finn would stay with me.  So he was right I were keeping me options open.”  She kept her eyes on the floor, the guilt for everything that had happened to Finn washing over her, “it weren’t that I thought he weren’t good enough and I were looking for others.  It’s that… I’m not good enough for him, and eventually he’ll realise it.  So…”  She tapered off, hoping he’d just understand.

“So you kept Phil as a backup?”

“I guess.”  She looked up at him, “I didn’t even realise I were doing it.  But now that I look on it… that’s what I were doing.”  She got up, not wanting to feel Kester’s eyes on her, and went to the window.  “I just knew that eventually Finn’d leave me.  And Phil is actually pretty nice.  If I weren’t with Finn, I’d probably enjoy being with him.”  She shook her head.  “So I hurt Finn to keep Phil as a back-up for when Finn eventually realised he could do better.”

“Creating a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy?” 

“I’m pretty lucky that Finn’s so stubborn.”  She agreed with him.  “And I will have to have a bit of a chat with Phil, cos Finn deserves better than that from me.” 

“I think you deserve better from you.”  Rae turned her eyes to him.

“You mean I should start believing that Finn wants to be with me?  That I deserve him?”  Kester nodded slowly, letting her follow her own train of thought.  “I don’t know if I’m good enough for him.  I don’t know if I’ll ever think I am.”  She put her forehead against the glass and looked to the left, wondering if she could see Finn’s window from here.  She couldn’t.  “But I do know that he wants to be with me.  There’s no question of that.  I just wish I had realised it sooner.  Saved him so much pain.”

“So what’s happened?”  He sat back in his chair and settled his hands across his lap. 

“He nearly died saving my life Kester.”  She looked over at him.  “He was in ICU earlier this week.  They only just moved him to the general ward.”  She tried to look through the window again towards the general ward.  Kester lit a cigarette, understanding why Finn had missed his session now. 

“How did he save your life?”

“By beating the ever loving shit out of Saul.”  She gripped the window sill.  “He’s my stalker.”  Kester sought out the name Saul in his memory and recalled several vague references to him in their previous sessions. 

“And how did Finn nearly die.”

“Saul stabbed him.”  She started to cry, even thinking about it was absolutely awful to her. 

“Is Finn out of danger?”  Kester asked, hiding his alarm.

“I think so…”  Rae said, repressing her tears, not wanting to cry anymore.  “He seems to be getting better.”

“Tell me about Saul.”  Kester licked his lips and decided to pay Finn a visit as soon as possible.

“He’s this disgusting… filthy… pile of shit.”  She came back to her seat and watched Kester smoke for a minute.  “I should o’ known it were him.”  She said quietly, “he tried to rape me a while back… and when I went to get Chloe, there were something in the way he mocked me… just…”  She paused, remembering what had happened when she’d finally gotten Chloe downstairs.  “You know I were getting Chlo out o’ there. And Ian were yelling, and he grabbed her and, he threatened her… and the other blokes were in on it… but Saul was just sitting on the longue watching it all…”  She shook her head realising what Saul had been doing, “he were watching me.  I didn’t see it but.”  She rubbed her face slowly, “if I’d o’ just seen it.”

“You’re not to blame.”

“He got into my home Kester.”  Rae said softly, calmly.  “He came into my home.  And he cut me, he hurt me.  And…” she looked away, “he touched me…”  Kester leaned forward, his brow furrowed, “he made me touch him.”  She looked up at Kester, “I just feel numb about that… I feel nothing.  What should I feel?”

“You should feel whatever you do feel.”

“I wish Finn had killed him.” 

“I think that’s a perfectly normal thing to think and feel.”  He answered softly.  Rae’s eyes wandered away from his face and lost focus.  Kester knew that the next few months would be difficult for Rae. 

“But he got away.”  She whispered, “he’s still out there.”  She shook her head slowly and turned to Kester, “Is he gonna come for me again?”

“I don’t know.”  Kester answered honestly.  “Every stalker is different.  He’s just as likely to leave you alone now as come after you.”  Kester sat forward on his chair and took her hand, “You have to do things to ensure your safety Rae.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Need You Tonight’ by INXS _

 

Finn watched her from under his eyebrows, a huge grin on his face as she cut his food for him.  She had been particular about doing everything for him when he was in ICU, and even now that he was in general and shared the room with another person, and could do it himself, she persisted.  In ICU he had been so weak that everything she did had been so helpful and necessary.  But now it was just adorable and endearing. 

“There.”  She said and moved the plate closer to him.  He sat up a little and she rushed to set his pillows for him. 

“Thank you.”  He kept his eyes on her as he ate his lunch.  “Want some?”

“You need all of your food to get well.”  She admonished.  And his grin broadened.  He took another bit-sized morsel into his mouth and chewed it, watching her closely. 

“When’s everyone getting here?”  He asked.

“In about an hour.”  Rae told him and he nodded thoughtfully. 

“You know… I wanted to tell you why it took me so long to tell you how I feel.”  He bit his bottom lip and moved some peas around on his plate, “I were waiting for the perfect moment.  So that you’d know I were saying it for no other reason than it’s the truth.”  She touched his face.  “I didn’t want to say it after something like this.”  He shook his head, “cos it make it seem like I only said it cos I nearly died.”  Remembering that he had nearly died made her lower her eyes in pain, but she nodded that she understood.  “So… I want you to know that it’s the truth, and I wanted to say it sooner but there were always something happening.  I didn’t just say it cos o’ what happened.  Or cos you said it.”  He took her hand and look into her eyes, “I love you.”  It was the second time he’d said it to her and she kissed him deeply in response. 

“I know.”  She stroked his face, “I love you Finn.”  She had been far more verbose about saying it, but every time she did say it his face lit up as if it were Christmas.  She noticed the relief on his face; that had been weighing on him for the past few days.

A nurse bustled in to take his blood pressure and temperature. 

“Everything is looking good Mr Nelson.”  She said with a smile, “you’re healing very quickly.”  She had a quick look at his wound.  Rae could never look at it without feeling anxious.  “I’ll be back to change the dressing soon.”  She told him as she left the room; the other patient in the room not needing as much monitoring as Finn. 

Finn turned his face to Rae as she closed the curtain between the other patient and Finn a little more. 

“What?”  He had such a cheeky grin on his face, and a devilish glint in his eye.

“Just thinking about your diary.”

“Oh yes?”  She asked pleasantly.

“How’s that gushing problem o’ yours?”  He teased.  Rae’s face reddened and she looked to the curtain.  But she would not admonish Finn on this. 

“It’s fine thank you.”  She said even toned. 

“How long do I get a free pass on everything for?”

“Not much longer.”  She tried to stay peaceful but his grin was infectious and she found herself laughing.  He sat up, with great effort, still wincing when he pulled himself wrong and reached down between Rae’s legs.  Her eyes and mouth opened wide in surprise.  A soft groan escaped from his mouth as his fingertips found her warm pussy.  She stood up, trying to get him to lie back, but that only gave him a better angle and he cupped her vagina gently, his desire obvious.  He leaned back when she gently prodded him to, but his fingertips lingered on her upper thighs.  Slowly they traced out words.

_Get on top of me._

She shook her head, her eyes returning to the curtain.

_Ride me_

“Your stitches.”  She leaned in to him and murmured softly.  He groaned as his other hand went to her breasts, eagerly.

“But you’re so sexy.”  He whispered urgently.  “And I need you.”  She saw his cock perking up under the covers and turned back to the curtain. 

“I can’t.”  She whispered, “Your wound.”  He leaned up and kissed her lips

“It’ll be fine.”  He breathed, the desire in his voice was overwhelming.  “Ride me.”  He pulled back the blankets and motioned for her to get on top.  “I can tear those tights again.”  He grinned. 

“Finn.”  Rae said softly, “I would love to climb on top o’ you, but you are not properly healed.  They still monitoring you hourly!”  He groaned. 

“If I die inside o’ you I’ll be happy.”  He teased, his hand cupping her cunt again. 

“Don’t joke about that Finn.”  She said seriously.

“I’m not joking!  I mean it!”  He said as his fingers started to pull at the crotch of her tights. 

“Finn.”  She groaned softly as she heard her tights tearing.  Her desire for him fighting with her concern.  She looked down at the tent being created in his pyjama bottoms and gently pulled back his pants to reveal his beautiful cock.  She whimpered slightly. 

“Alright?”  He asked eagerly, thinking she would be riding him soon.  His fingers tore at her tights again and pushed aside her underwear to find her wet pussy, he slid a finger inside of her and moaned throatily.  He watched her repress her moan as he found her sensitive areas and turn her lusty eyes to his.

“I’ve fucking missed your body so much.”  He could barely form words his desire was so intense.  “I need you.”  He repeated those words and pulled her closer for a kiss.  But she leaned down and took his cock into his mouth and he gasped softly and felt the tense desire in his body ease as he settled back into the bed, his fingers still deep inside of her.  He watched her sucking his cock and enjoyed that he was making her groan with his fingers. 

“I love you.”  He said to her as she licked the length of his shaft. 

“I love you.”  She returned, the tip of his cock on her lips as she spoke.  He found that saying and hearing those words now, while she pleasured him made the entire experience intensely more pleasurable and he felt himself getting close already.

“Slow down.”  He whispered urgently.  “I want you on top.”  He groaned as orgasm rushed towards him far too soon.  She took his full length into her mouth and he came deep in her throat, her eyes widening with surprise.  “Now.”  He was saying; trying to warn her he was coming as it happened.  She sucked the length of his cock and pulled his pants back up before coughing slightly because of the way his cum had hit her throat. 

“Sorry.”  He gasped, still stunned at the suddenness of his orgasm she shook her head.

“S’alright.”  She swallowed and leaned on the bed as Finn intensified his fingering of her, determined to make her cum, but he could feel how much weaker he was; his fingers were already tiring.  Luckily, Rae seemed to be on as much of a hair-trigger as he was and he watched her mouth open and knew she was close.  Her fingers gripped the edge of the bed as a powerful orgasm rocked her, making it almost impossible to stand as she shuddered in pleasure.  Rae looked down at him through post orgasm eyes.

“I’m still missing your body.”  Her voice was low and throaty and he narrowed his eyes in appreciation of her post-cum voice.  His fingers still slowly moving inside of her. 

“Climb on top.”  He ordered, and Rae looked down at his still erect cock.  “I’ve gotta have you.”  He said, “I need you.”  He reached up to her face and stroked her hair.  “I need to make love to you Rae.”  He whispered.  “I need this.”

“Me too.”  She said softly.  “But not yet.  Your wound isn’t healed enough.  And I love you, so I’m not gonna let anything hurt you.”  He sighed acknowledging that she was probably right, but the urgency of the kiss he gave her made it clear that he was going to keep trying anyway; his desire for her demanded it.  They kept kissing heatedly, his fingers insisting that she cum again.  Rae felt her hand starting to creep down his pants; she just couldn’t help herself. 

They heard someone clear their throat and both looked up quickly, Finn hurriedly removing his fingers from her cunt.  Gary was standing at the foot of the bed, turned away, his eyes on the floor.  Finn hurriedly pulled the blankets back up and looked away from his father.  Rae stood by Finn’s bed, heaving with sexual desire and looking everywhere but at Gary.  And then she saw Finn starting to put his fingers up to his face, clearly to lick her cum from them.  She stopped him gently and their eyes met, him realising what he had just been about to do in front of his father.  They both blushed but Gary had kept his eyes on the floor this whole time, his face turned away from them.

“Can I visit yet?”  He asked, still looking away.  Rae sat down in the chair, acutely conscious of the hole in her pants. 

“Yeah da.”  Finn said as naturally as he could.  Gary turned his eyes to them.

“Seems you’re feeling much better.”  He said with a straight face and Finn nodded.

“Aye.”  Finn blushed.

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Santa Monica’ by Everclear _

 

When Archie arrived 15 minutes later Gary was deep in reminiscence; every part of Finn’s childhood had been sentimentally relived in minute detail during these hospital visits.  Rae loved every minute of it, and Finn tolerated it well enough.  She supposed it was his way of dealing with how close Finn had come to dying. 

Archie took a moment to just look at Finn.

“Alright?”  Archie asked and cleared his throat. 

“Alright.”

“So you’re not gonna die then?”

“Probably not today.”  Finn grinned and Archie returned the grin.  He came over to the bed and started to grab Finn for a hug, Finn winced slightly.

“Gentle!”  Rae ordered and Archie pulled a worried face.

“Sorry!”  He froze, “I didn’t know.”

“”S’alright.”  Finn pulled him into the hug and slapped his back comfortingly. 

“I’m glad you’re not gonna die.”  Archie said as he grabbed one of the last chairs, “Chloe’s getting Chop.”  He told them, “Izzy’ll probably make it down after her tests.”  He looked down at the floor for a moment.  “So what you been up to?”

“Nearly dying.”  Finn said and Rae shook her head at how cavalier he was.  Chloe and Chop came in.  Chloe smiling at Finn from the base of the bed and Chop going in for a hug.

“Gentle!”  Rae warned and Chop gave her a look.

“What?  Am I supposed to tenderly make love to him now?”  He pulled Finn into a hug and Finn winced loudly.  “Oh fuck.”  Chop looked at him confused.  “That bad?”  He was used to Finn controlling his pain well and Finn nodded. 

“I’d like to remind you two twats,” Rae said looking at Chop meaningfully and then glancing at Archie, “That Finn nearly died and he still has stitches in his fucking liver.”  She looked back at Chop, “So yeah Chop, you will make tender fucking love to him.”  Finn laughed and Chop shook his head.  Gary smiled as he shook his head; that girl was a firecracker.  Chop pulled up the last chair and Archie motioned for Chloe to sit on his lap. 

“So how bad was it?”  Chop asked.

“Lost 42% of his blood.”  Gary said softly. 

“Holy shit.”  Archie marvelled. 

“And the damage?”  Chloe asked anxiously, “I mean inside… to your organs?”

“Just me liver.”  Finn shrugged.

“No drinking for you!”  Chop remarked.

“It’s healing alright though.”  Finn explained, “The wound were pretty clean and Dr Kraus said that me liver will probably have no long term effects.”  He grinned, “Got off pretty lucky I s’pose.” 

“So like, in a couple o’ months you can have a drink?”

“S’pose.”  Finn said, “I’ll ask her.”  He yawned as Chop started talking about going to the pub to tease him.  Finn looked over at Rae, reaching out to take her hand.

“I love you.”  He said softly to her and she leaned forward and stroked his face.

“I love you.”  She breathed back equally as soft.  Chop was still chatting happily, Gary having engaged him in talk about favourite beers.  Archie and Chloe though had both seen the exchange between Rae and Finn and they shared a smile before pretending that they’d seen nothing.  The nurse came back in and looked at the full room.

“I need to get in here.”  She said to Gary and he stood up.

“I think that’s my cue to go.”  He kissed Finn on the forehead and left as the nurse started to pull up Finn’s shirt. 

“Viewer discretion advised.”  She announced before she pulled the dressings off.  Rae looked away as she always did, Finn keeping his eyes on her and squeezing her hand in comfort.  Archie and Chop leaned in for a better view and Chloe found herself looking on curiously. 

A large angry slash, easily 50 centimetres, or more, long, sloped along the right side of his abdomen, it was stapled together with what looked like at least 50 metal staples.  Chloe’s jaw dropped and Archie inhaled with a wincing, sympathetic hiss. 

“Holy motherfucking fuck shit.”  Chop breathed in awe.  The nurse looked at him from the corner of her eye.

“Indeed.”  She agreed with a small amused smile.

“I had no idea a stab wound would be so big.”  Archie marvelled.

“Oh it’s from the surgeries.”  Finn answered.  He looked up at Rae worried, suddenly self-conscious of how big the scar was going to be.  But she could never bring herself to look at the wound.  He pulled his lips into a tight line and looked down at the wound across his abdomen. 

“It’s gonna make a bloody good scar!”  Chop remarked with admiration, “You’d get all the girls with a scar like that.”  Finn rolled his eyes.

“Maybe we should give you one Chop?”  He retorted and picked up the jelly he’d been given as part of his lunch meal and started to eat it. 

“Nah it’s alright!”  Chop laughed.  “But you are the toughest motherfucker I know!” 

“You tell me this while I’m eating raspberry jelly belly fun time.”  Finn held the cup up to Chop so he could see what was written on it.  They laughed as the nurse carefully cleaned Finn’s wound. 

“I think we can leave the dressing off now.”  She said.  “How’s the cannula?”  She asked as she looked down at his hand.

“Itching.” 

“It’s fine.”  She answered, “Don’t touch it.”  Finn nodded in response and she left the room. 

“How’s Izzy going?”  Finn asked as he looked down at his uncovered wound.  He pulled the blanket up over it, frowning. 

“She’s frail.”  Chop frowned.  “But she brave.”  He nodded, “She’s saying she wants to move in permanently as soon as she gets discharged.” 

“Well that’s good.”  Archie said, “It’s what you wanted.”

“Hey,” Chloe asked, “how’d you get that place so quick?”  She asked, “It’s like you got an inheritance and 4 days later you had an apartment!”

“Oh I’d already saved up for a deposit and signed a mortgage for it.  Where just finishing up a few things when I got the news.”  He shrugged, “now I don’t have a mortgage cos o’ that money.”  He scratched his chin, “Whole thing were a bit of a legal fuck up to be honest.  It’s shite being under 18.” 

“Why didn’t you say nothing?”  Chloe asked.

“That’s all boring stuff innit?”  He looked at his feet for a moment, “Guys…”  He said seriously, “I were thinking that… well I know Izzy’s gonna make it… but…” He struggled to speak clearly, “but if she don’t I were thinking we should do a bunch o’ stuff for her that she really wanted to do afore she… can’t.”  He finished softly. 

They were silent.  No one knew whether to say that it was a great idea or to tell him she was going to make it. 

“She always said she wanted to go to the beach.”  Rae said softly, “She’s never been.” 

“Yeah I know.”  Chop nodded. “That was one of the first things I thought about.”  He glanced at Finn and lowered his eyes.  And Finn knew what one of the other things he’d thought about had been. 

“Let’s go to the beach this Easter.”  Finn suggested and Chop nodded.  “I’ll organise it.”

“No.”  Archie said, “You rest, I’ll organise it.” 

“Agreed.”  Rae said over the top of Finn who was starting to protest. 

“She really wants to finish your dress Rae.”  Chloe said, “She designed it herself.  And she wants to be a designer.”  Chloe took a sad breath in, “We can help her finish it.” Rae nodded.

“I know she wants to go to Italy.”  Archie said, “But I don’t see how we can do that?”

“Maybe we can have an Italian feast night or something?”  Chloe offered.

“Yeah with Italian movies and stuff?”  Archie got on board with the idea.

“Hey guys.”  Izzy shuffled in, her hand gently touching her port, and everyone turned to look at her hoping she hadn’t heard anything.  Her skin looked like the thinnest of bone china, her body seemed tired, fragile like a tree infested with termites, as if the slightest pressure would break her.  Chop jumped up and went to her. 

“You alright?”

“They just took a little blood Chop!  I hardly notice it cos o’ the port.”  She tried to grin as she settled herself into the chair Gary had vacated.  Izzy had had a port inserted under her skin near her collar bone to help administer the chemo drugs and to make it easier to take blood.  She had been worried about the scar, but Chop had done his best to sooth away that fear.  Still, she often touched it or looked at it, worrying. 

There was a silence and they all knew they had to save the moment quickly. 

“So did you hear Roach asked Elsa out?”  Archie asked and they laughed, Finn the loudest, Chop watching them, confused as to why this was funny.  Rae turned to look at Finn with a bemused smile.

“There’s no way she’d be interested.”  He explained. 

“You think he’s too ugly for her?”  Rae asked. 

“No, too monogamous.”  He grinned, “And she works with him.  I don’t see it happening.”

“Well you’re right!”  Archie told him, “she said no and he’s been avoiding her since, and when they meet up in the hallways by accident it’s so funny!” 

“Yeah.”  Chloe added “Macy said he were 10 minutes late to class on account of avoiding Elsa.”  They laughed.

“Hey, do you reckon that Janice and your dad’ll get together?”  Chloe asked.

“When d’you meet Janice?”

“They stay over so I’m not alone at night.”  Rae answered and Finn took her hand, wishing he could be with her at night.  He hated sleeping alone.  He smiled at Chloe and Archie, grateful that they were looking after Rae for him.

“I’ll be outta here soon.  Can’t fucking wait.”  He replied bracingly.

“So d’you think it’ll happen.”  Chloe persisted. 

“No, cos he’s still pining for mum.”  Finn said sadly, “pity cos he probably needs a good shag!” 

“Oh!”  Chloe said with a disgusted face, “I never wanna think about my parents in bed…”

“Ugh.”  Rae agreed and Archie just shook his head.  Izzy sat silently smiling, watching them, and Chop was divided between watching her and joining in for her.  They had to be happy for her, and seeing the look on her face now, he understood how this would take her mind of her own problems.  He understood why Izzy needed this so much.

“You’re in the best mood I’ve seen you in for weeks.”  Chop told Finn and he cocked his head to the side considering this. 

“I ain’t got a fucking stalker to worry about anymore!”  He explained.

“What d’you mean?”  Chop asked “he got away, didn’t he?”

“CHOP!”  Chloe yelled at him. 

“What?”

Finn turned his eyes to Rae and saw the truth in them.

“Why didn’t you say?”  The worried look that had left his face was returning. 

“Cos you gotta focus on getting better.  So we decided to just wait a little bit to tell you.  I’m sorry.”

“So all the days I been in here, you been unsafe?”  He started to sit up a little.

“Finn…”

“No, I gotta be discharged today.”  Rae looked up angrily at Chop

“No mate we got it.”  Archie said.  “If we don’t leave her alone, he won’t come.” 

“Besides,” Rae added, preparing herself for the lie she was about to tell. “Kester said he’d probably back off after the beating you gave him.” 

“Yeah?”  He asked looking unsure.

“Aye!”  She grinned, “I’ll be fine!”

“What happened, how’d he get away?”  Finn asked angrily.

“He just weren’t there when the fuzz got there.”  Rae gently pushed him back into a lying position.

“I should o’ called the fuzz first.”  He shook his head, “You was fine; we didn’t need the ambulance as much as the cops.”

“But you would have died if you’d waited any longer.”

“Whatever it takes to keep you safe Mrs Nelson.”

“Mrs Nelson?”  Izzy asked in a tired but enthusiastic voice. 

Rae looked at his face, a piercing pain in her heart.  He would die for her.  He would knowingly lay down his life for her.  That knowledge hit her hard and she had to conceal a gasp as she watched him turn to Izzy.

“Aye!”  He exclaimed, “You heard her; she getting all Scottish on me, saying ‘Aye’ all the time.  I got no option but to make an honest woman of her!”  Izzy laughed and Rae smiled, pushing back the tears welling up inside of her as she watched his beautiful face while he laughed at Chop’s teasing.

“Bloke gets stabbed and all he can think about is his woman!”  Chop laughed, “You’re in deep trouble laddy.”  Rae watched Finn speaking, took in every detail of him.

“Aye I know!”  He laughed and without warning Rae leaned in and kissed him passionately as he opened his mouth to say more. 

“Bloody hell!”  Izzy laughed.

“We’re still here guys.”  Archie shook his head as Finn raised his hand to Rae’s face. 

“I love you.”  Rae said urgently.  Finn stared at her face, not sure what had brought on this urgency, but enjoying the way it made her eyes shine.

“I love you too Mrs Nelson.” 

“Alright!”  Chloe said, “I think we’ve had enough o’ that.”

“To last a fucking life time!”  Archie agreed with a laugh, “I walked in on them shagging don’t forget.”

“On our fucking longue!”  Chop agreed.

“I’ve had enough heterosexual foolishness from you two!”  Archie grinned as he tried to admonish them.

“Sorry.”  Rae said pretending to be admonished, but Finn would have none of it and shrugged, indifferent to his words. 

“So how long till they let you out?”  Izzy asked with a longing look.

“Dunno.”

“It’ll be before me.”  She said glumly.

“Aye but that just means you get to enjoy the delightful food for much longer.”  Izzy grinned and Chop put his hand on her knee and squeezed it gently. 

“That’s what I like about you Finn; always looking on the bright side!”  Izzy joked

 

 

***

 

 

Finn laid despondently, bored out of his mind, watching the television.  It was well after visiting hours and he missed Rae.  He wished the nursing staff would let her stay.  These nights alone where killing him.  Plus now he had the added worry of knowing Saul was still a threat.  He sighed and slowly sat up.  He suspected he should take more of the pain medication they gave him; he just had to press a button and relief would come.  He took a little to keep it down to a dull throb, but there was something about feeling the wound, that made him feel like he was learning an indelible lesson.  He wouldn’t be so unprepared next time.  And he had no doubt there’d be a next time.  Rae wasn’t the kind of girl you just gave up on.  He knew that quite well. 

He carefully got out of bed and shuffled over to the bathroom; still feeling weak and unsteady.  Dr Kraus said it would be months until he was back to his old self.  Finn intended for it to be much quicker than that. 

He pulled up his shirt and looked at the wound in the mirror. 

_Small price to pay really._

_I hope she don’t hate the scar though._

He went over the toilet and thought about Saul as he peed.

_If I can be so affected by her, that I can’t let her go… cos she changed my world… then other people can be too._

_Phillip._

Finn pulled a face.

_Phillip has been affected by her.  Saul had been.  Who else?_

_Everyone in the gang too.  But they’re alright._

_What makes Saul be the way he is?_

_Why’d he go so nuts?_

_And Phillip, he’s obsessed too._

_And so am I._

_So what… what makes me different?_

Finn washed his hands and frowned at his reflection.  He walked out of the bathroom and saw Kester sitting by his bedside.  The other patient in the room was on sleeping meds and had been out cold since after dinner, so Finn was really glad to see Kester. 

“Glad to see you up and about.”  Kester smiled, “from what Rae says, it was a close thing.”

“Aye.”  Finn said as he got himself back in bed, “Sorry I missed me appointment.”  Kester shook his head.

“I think we can forgive you this time.  Don’t do it again.”  He chuckled. 

“I’ll do me best.”  Finn grinned and sorted out his pillows so he could sit up.  “I’d kill for a smoke.”  He looked at the bulge in Kester’s shirt pocket and Kester shook his head.  “Worth a try.”  Finn grinned.

“You were in ICU?”

“Yeah but I weren’t as bad as everyone else in there… well not after the first day or two… they just didn’t have any room for me in the general wards I think.”  Kester nodded, and looked at him for a while.  Finn smiled grimly, knowing that Kester was appraising him. 

“Got anything on your mind?”  Kester got to the point.  Finn paused and looked at street light shining through the window, the way the moths flying around it moved the shadows in the corner flittingly. 

“Am I only different to Saul and Phillip cos she chose me?”  He asked in a scared voice.  “I mean she’s so amazing, and she touches everyone’s lives and people can’t live without her and… I love her… and you’ve said that I’m obsessed with her… and I… I sometimes think that the way I behave isn’t that different to Phil… or even Saul.”  Finn stopped his monologue and looked at Kester for reassurance, “am I like them?  Is what I do different just because she chose me?”

“Truth?”  Kester asked him and Finn nodded.  “You and Phillip are very similar.”  Finn lowered his eyes.

“I figured.”  He took a moment to sit with that, “that’s why I hate him so much.”  Finn acknowledged, “and also cos he’s probably a better fit for Rae than me.”  Kester heard his despondent tone but let him continue without countering that thought yet, “If Rae hadn’t said everything she said at her mum’s wedding, and we hadn’t gotten together that first time… I’d o’ been Phillip.  Chasing her till I had her, even if she had a lad.”  He shook his head, “the only reason I didn’t chase her after she broke it off with me is cos I were sure she did it cos I’d done something wrong, or cos I weren’t enough for her.”  He swallowed hard, “even then, it were always in the back of me mind that if I worked hard enough, waited long enough… I’d get her back.” 

“Do you know who gets to choose who’s a right fit for Rae?”  Finn looked up at him and smiled, nodding.

“Rae.”  Finn answered, understanding the point Kester was making. 

“That’s right.”  Kester shifted in his seat and considered Saul, “You share some characteristics with Saul, the obsession for example.”  Kester continued, “But you don’t have his delusions, or his violence… he created a whole world around Rae-”

“Well so have I!”

“Yes but Rae’s a willing participant in that.”  Kester noted firmly, “With Saul, he created this world without her involvement, without her encouragement, without her consent, and without her knowledge.”  Kester smiled wearily, “that is a very big and very important difference.”

“Aye.”  Finn said softly, considering that.  “I just hate thinking I’m like him at all.”

“We’ve all got things like obsession and jealousy in us Finn.  It’s a sliding scale not an on / off switch.”

“S’pose.”  Finn answered non-committal.  “But am I too obsessed with her…?  It worries me.  Cos I can’t live without her.”  Finn said softly, “but saying that makes me sound like them.  Like Phillip and Saul.”

“The line between love that is healthy and unhealthy is a very thin line Finn.”  Kester warned, “And really it’s up to you and Rae to decide where that line is.” 

“You think Saul loves her?”

“In his own extremely deluded, obsessed way.  It’s not what most people would define as real love though.”

“Aye but love’s love innit?”  Finn said frustrated, “I can’t judge other people’s love.  It’s not for me to say if their love is real or no.”

“But you can probably get an idea of whether it’s healthy or not.”  Kester replied and Finn paused to think about that, “Do you think your love for Rae is healthy?”  Finn slowly felt the usual big stupid grin creeping over his face.

“Aye.”  He nodded. 

“And Phillip’s love?”

“Maybe… I dunno.”  Finn thought about it with furrowed eyebrows for some time before Kester moved him on.

“And Saul’s.”

“No.” 

“Then what are you worried about?”  Kester leaned forward.

“I guess I thought cos I had similar emotions to them that… that the emotions were of the same quality.”  Finn sorted through his thoughts, “But they’re not.”  Kester raised his eyebrows at him approvingly.

“Feel better?”

“Yeah!”  Finn nodded, “Thanks.”

“So… stabbed.”  Kester prodded Finn into talking about it.  Finn nodded.  “Scary.”  Kester raised his eyebrows again.

“Not really.”  Finn shrugged, “I were more worried about Rae.  Had no time to even think about it.”  Finn furrowed his eyebrows in thought, “even when I saw the knife sticking out o’ me, I just worried that Rae was bleeding from her neck.  And then when I had to fight him, I just thought ‘put this fucker down so Rae’s safe’ and nothing else.”

“Not a thought for yourself?”  Kester asked with a sad face.

“Not really.”  Finn shrugged. 

“I think we need to work on you taking care of yourself a little more.”  Kester answered.

“Rae does that.”  He grinned. 

“You nearly died Finn and you weren’t scared at all?  Do you care about what nearly happened?”

“I care about how it’s affected Rae.  I worry what she thinks about me now… especially the scar... it’s kinda ugly.”

“You’re not worried that you nearly died Finn?”  Kester pushed.

“It would have been for her, so it’s fine.”  Finn retorted. 

“How do you think Rae would have coped if you’d died?”  Finn looked taken aback; he clearly hadn’t thought of that.  “Do you think she would have blamed herself?”  Kester asked, “Do you think she would have ever gotten over you… properly?”  He put his hands on Finn’s bed, “If you bled out in that room, what do you think Saul would have done?”  Kester licked his lips, trying to give it time to sink in.

“But I had no choice but to fight him.”  Finn answered. 

“You could have called the police.”

“They’d o’ just fucked it up.”  Finn shook his head, “When are you gonna understand Kester?  She’s me girl; I love her more than me own life, I would die for her in an instant.  Without question; if that’s what she needed.”

“But she needs you alive Finn.  Alive and healthy.”  Kester made his point with a small smile, “So you gotta start taking better care of yourself.” 

“You’re too good at this shit.”  Finn said as he realised Kester had always understood where Finn stood. 

“So what’s something you can do that would be looking after yourself?”

“Besides spending time with Rae?”  He asked and Kester nodded, “I quite like going to the boxing joint.  And spending time with the lads.  You mean that kind o’ thing?” 

“Yes.  And also things that help you feel that you are important.”

“Like what?”

“Acknowledging how you feel, even when it’s difficult.  Or terrifying.”  Kester said carefully and Finn looked away.  They sat in silence for a long time. 

“You know it was scary.”  Finn acknowledged vulnerably, “And not just cos I were worried I’d never see her again, never tell her I love her… but because I didn’t want to die.”  His voice cracked and he sucked his bottom lip as he felt the tears fall over his cheeks.  “I didn’t wanna die.”  He repeated, “I’m not ready for that!”  He took a deep shuddering breath, “and I keep thinking, this is gonna happen again.  He’ll come for her again… and what if I can’t…” he wiped his face angrily, “what I can’t look after her next time?”

“You mean what if you’re not there?”

“No I mean, what if I freeze up, cos I don’t wanna die?”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘We All Fall In Love Sometimes’ by Jeff Buckley _

 

Finn looked through the pamphlets he’d been given on his wound care as Rae pulled out of the hospital. 

“I gotta come back every day for two weeks so they can check the wound.”  He skimmed through the information.

“When are they taking the staples out?”

“3 days.”  Finn said grimly.

“I’m a bit scared o’ that.”  She admitted.

“Worried it’ll split right open?”  He asked with a small grin.

“Kinda.”  She scrunched up her nose, embarrassed.  He shook his head and put his hand on her thigh.

_I love you_

He wrote and she smiled.

“No soap or creams on the wound.”  He continued, “I have to take lots o’ naps apparently.”  He said happily and Rae laughed, “Eat lots o’ protein.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage that.”

“Gentle exercise.”

“I see lots of long romantic walks in our future Finlay.”

“Aye.”  He kept reading, “No sunlight on wound, no driving on account of the pain drugs and antibiotics,” He held up his paper bag of drugs and continued to read, “I have to wait at least 6 weeks before I can do medium to heavy exercise.”  He said frustrated. 

“Does that mean sex?”  Rae asked in a small horrified voice.

“I bloody hope not.”  He kept reading for anything explicitly stated about sex.  “Ah!  We’re fine to have gentle sex.”  He said with relief. 

“Thank fuck!”  Rae grinned, “So your dad’ll be home from work at 5 and Janice said she’ll be waiting for us at your place.”

“I wanna go to your place.”  He said softly but resolutely. 

“I haven’t been back since…”

“I know.”  Finn turned his face to her, “that’s why we have to go back now.”  Finn looked, “Your mum must be pretty worried,”

“I hadn’t even thought about that.”  Rae shook her head.  “It’s been over a week since I were last home…”

“And they would o’ been back what, 4 days ago?”

“Oh shit.”  Rae shook her head.  “It’s felt like months but!”

“I know.”  Finn shook his head, “How can you nearly bleed to death and be out o’ hospital in a little over a week.”

“I don’t care how it happens, I’m just glad it does.”  She said honestly, “I hated seeing you in that place.”

“I hated you seeing me there.  I don’t want you to think… that I can’t take care o’ you.”  Rae looked at him momentarily before turning back to the road.

“Why would you think that I’d think that?”  She shook her head.

“Cos that stuff matters to me.”  He ran his fingers along her thigh affectionately.  Rae pulled up outside of her house.  Finn’s bike was still there, but no other cars.  She turned to him.

“Well it don’t matter to me Finn.”  She said earnestly, “I don’t see you as me bodyguard.  You’re me boyfriend not the bloomin’ secret service.  It’s not your job to throw yourself in front o’ bullets for me.”

“Yeah it is.”  He stroked her cheek.

“Finn.”  She said sternly, winding herself up to get into a long lecture.

“You’re just avoiding going in that house.”  He said softly and she stopped, all of her innards freezing and she nodded.  He stroked her hair and motioned for her to come closer to him so he could kiss her; leaning and twisting was still difficult.  He kissed her gently and looked into her eyes for a long time.

“We both have to do this.”

He got out of the car and looked up at the house, his inside churning violently.  He looked away, struggling to keep his demeanour.  He walked around and opened Rae’s door.  She got out and refused to look at the house, instead keeping her eyes on Finn.  He took her hand and they started to walk towards the house.  Rae handed him her keys and he unlocked the door, his mind flashing back to the last time he’d done this. 

He opened the door and looked in.  The television was still on the floor and he furrowed his brows.  He saw the red light blinking on the answering machine and turned back to Rae, but she hadn’t taken her eyes off him and was sucking her bottom lip, her large eyes showing all the fear she felt.  He reached out and stroked her face.

“It’s alright, I don’t think anyone’s been here since… it happened.”  He walked into the house, Rae following and clicked on the answering machine.

“Rachel.  Is Karim.”  Rae looked over at the machine, fear that something had happened to her mother stirring in the pit of her stomach.  “We stay in Tunisia for another 5 or 6 days.”  The message continued and Rae let out her breath slowly.  She noticed that beside her Finn was doing the same thing.  He turned back to the door and deadlocked it. 

“How did he get in?”  Rae asked as she walked into the longue room, picking up the elephant on the coffee table.

“The kitchen window.  He must have known.”  Finn shook his head.

“I remember mum yelling after Karim that he needed to fix the lock on that window.”  Rae said softly. 

“It’s for Aiesha.”  He nodded at the elephant.

“I guessed.”  She grinned.  Finn picked up the comb and showed it to her.

“But this is for you.” 

“It’s beautiful.”  She said softly. 

“And if I hadn’t been dawdling about buying it… things might o’ been different.”  He put the comb in his pocket, not wanting to look at it, but not wanting to throw out something that belonged to her.

“Yeah Saul might o’ stabbed you sooner.”  Finn looked away.

“You think I was always gonna fail?”  He asked sadly.

“You didn’t fail!”  She answered, “You saved my life.”  She touched his face, “It’s me that failed you.”

“How d’you figure that?”  But she looked away and motioned for him to come to the kitchen.  The first thing that Finn noticed was that the lock on the kitchen window had been changed.

“That’ll be Janice and your dad.”  Rae said as she saw him looking at it.  Finn turned to her and looked at the stairs.

“C’mon.”  He took her hand and they started up the stairs. 

They stood at the door to her room.

“Janice must have cleaned the carpet.”  Rae said softly as they took in the room. 

“Can still see the stain but.”  Finn’s eyes took in the size of the stain and he took a deep breath.  Rae looked over at the mirror and turned away.  She walked over to the bed, replete with clean sheets and sat down, turning her eyes immediately to Finn who stood at the door, looking at the mirror.  Finn was just now remembering that both Rae and Saul had been semi undressed when he had come in.  It was like the blood loss and trauma and fear of the whole thing had removed one of the most vital pieces of information.  Rae may have been raped, and he’d been getting his hands up her skirt for the past 4 days without a thought for her mental state. 

Rae watched his eyes move over the area near the mirror, wandering what he was thinking and wishing he’d come over to her; it had been over a week since they’d properly embraced each other. 

Finn slowly turned his eyes to Rae but now she was looking at the necklace, lying on her bed side table.  He watched as her eyes spilled over with silent tears, her fingertips gently picking up the diamond. 

He crossed the room and knelt before her, putting his hand over hers as she held the necklace, and they both became painfully aware that this was the exact position he’d been in when he’d been stabbed.  Rae sobbed and threw her arms around him and he pulled her into an embrace, his heart pounding, his mind terrifyingly creeping over every thought of what might have happened to her in this room for the hour and a half or so he was gone. 

He took her face into his hands and kissed her tentatively, not sure if she’d want to be touched like this.  She returned his kiss deeply and he felt his stomach unclench slightly. 

“I love you.”  He whispered to her, still holding her face, his forehead touching hers.

“I love you.”  Her voice was higher pitched than usual and cracking with tears.  He gently took the necklace from her hands and looked at the damage.  “I’m sorry.”  She whispered to him, clearly upset about the necklace and Finn looked up at her. 

“It doesn’t matter.”  He said softly, “The chain can be replaced.  You can’t.”  He looked back down at the chain and then put the necklace in his pocket, “and it’s not your fault what that fucking maggot did to… to you.”  He said softly and Rae lowered her eyes.  

“Sometimes I still feel his hands on me Finn.”  She said, her voice sounding like the gutted shell of a house devastated by fire.  Finn’s breath caught his throat, the pain in her voice, the desolation, made his inside clench painfully.  “I don’t know how Chloe copes with this when she had it so much worse.”  Rae sniffed and wiped at her tears roughly. 

“Yeah but it not a competition is it?”  Finn took her hands into his, “We’re not gonna have the suffering Olympics are we?”  Rae scoffed gently and sniffed again.

“No.”  She shook her head slowly, “that’s a stupid idea.”

“Right.  So no comparing what you went through to Chloe, right?”  Rae nodded.  “You got enough to get through without feeling like you’re not allowed to feel violated or anything else you feel.”  He kissed her forehead gently. 

“Can you make me not feel his hands Finn?”  She asked softly.

“I’ll do anything you need girl.”  She slowly took her shirt off and he gently put his hands on her sides.  She put her face into his neck, her arms loosely around his neck, and breathed him in while he slowly moved his hands across her back.  She flinched when his fingertips found the roll of fat Saul had squeezed and he stopped moving.  His fingers still touching her there.  She squeezed her eyes shut and tightened her arms around him.  Finn understood that Saul had done something to her here.  He stayed still for a long time, except for a soft stroking of his fingertips along the gentle fold of her skin.  He could feel the moisture of her tears against his neck but he kept his hands on her back.  When her crying slowed he moved his hand slowly over the area that had made her cry, feeling her tremble he paused again.  She turned her tear stained face to his and they kissed slowly, deeply.  She put one of her hands over his and moved it to her stomach, he felt the stiches and his eyes opened up widely.  He whipped his eyes down to look.

“He cut you…”  Finn’s voice was small and filled with pain for her.  She nodded.

“I don’t know which he wanted to do more; cut me or fuck me.”  Finn gently touched the cut and felt ill.

“He would o’ killed you.” 

“Eventually.”  Rae agreed, “After he’d had enough fun.”  She looked down, “He would o’ waited a long time afore he did it though.”  Finn put his hands on either side of the cut, not wanting to hurt her by touching it. 

“Can you tell me…”  He could barely squeeze the words out, “what… what...”

“What he did to me?”  Finn nodded, his mouth feeling stuffed with stones and cotton wool as the tears caught in the back of his throat. 

“He grabbed me downstairs.”  She said softly, “I remembered to use his weight against him but, and I threw him.”  Finn smiled and clung on to that, the idea of more self-defence classes firming in his mind.  “But the doors were dead bolted so I ran upstairs to go out me window.  But…” She looked away, “But he got me.”  She stood up and he sat back on his heels to let her move away from him; she walked to the mirror and he saw the yellowing bruises on her back where he had obviously squeezed her.  He stood up carefully and followed her to the mirror, he stood beside her and gently touched her bruises, his eyes falling to the cut on her stomach.  He looked at her face and gently ran his fingers along the yellowing bruise there, letting his hand slowly travel to the taped cuts on her neck.  He’d already seen these injuries every day since he’d woken up in hospital, but they were no less horrifying to him. 

“He…”  She looked in the mirror.  She already knew that her bra was hiding the bruises on her left breast, he had squeezed it so hard she had felt sure he had broken something inside of her.  There were still deep purple-ish finger marks and she had been avoiding looking at her breasts since it had happened, not wanting to see those marks.  She reached back and unhooked her bra, letting it fall from her, knowing that the bruises would say what he had done better than any words she used.  She saw Finn look away and close his eyes, sense that he had stopped breathing as the emotions went through him.  He slowly turned his face back to her and slowly raised his hand to her left breast.  He touched her slowly, carefully, with great reverence and aching love.  She watched him gently stroke the place Saul had violated, she felt almost as if she had given him permission to reclaim her body as his, but that he was gently trying to reclaim it as hers. 

“He touched me, and cut me… and told me he loves me.”  Rae looked at herself in the mirror, but Finn kept his eyes on the side of her face as she spoke.  One hand on the bruises on her back, the other on the bruises on her breast. 

“He said if I didn’t do what he said, didn’t talk to him and tell him I loved him that…”  She started to cry, “I told him I love him…”  Finn slowly took her into his arms and whispered to her.

“It’s ok.”

“No… I said those words to him before I’d said them to you.”  She cried, “He said... He said he cut my throat and fuck me while I bled out.”  She covered her face with her hands, “I’m sorry Finn.” 

“You had no choice but to do as he said.”  Finn soothed gently, “it didn’t mean nothing.”

“But I said… I said…”

“It meant nothing Rae.”  He gently stroked her hair, “all it meant was that you didn’t want to die.”  He put his lips to her shoulder and kissed her. 

“You took on a man with a knife for me.  And I wouldn’t even save those words for only you.”  She looked down, ashamed, “I’m such a coward.”

“No you’re not.”  He said calmly, “you did the right thing.”  He turned her face to him gently, “I wouldn’t o’ survived if you’d died.”  He said honestly, “everything you did to save yourself was an act of love for me.”  Her eyes fell to his mouth, wanting to believe him, she nodded slowly.  She reached over and took his shirt off.  She let her eyes linger on the wound for the first time, tears sliding down her face.  She put a fingertip beside it and traced the length of it. 

“I wouldn’t of survived without you either.”  She said with a vulnerability that pulled at him; he would do anything to protect her.  He leaned in and kissed her lips, a sob in his throat, the emotion threatening to overwhelm him.

“I nearly lost you.”  He whispered, remembering that he had thought that losing her by breaking up was the worst thing that could happen to him; he knew differently now. 

“I nearly lost you.”  She shook her head, “seeing you like that Finn…” They kissed again Rae turning her body to his.  They stood, foreheads touching, trying to make sense of what had happened. 

“There’s more.”  She said softly.  But Finn had known there would be.   He nodded slowly, his fingertips finding hers.  “He told me he were gonna take me to his place, and keep me there.”  He kissed her lips, feeling so grateful that he had gotten home before then, if Saul had taken her, Finn wouldn’t have known where to find her.  “So…” She stopped, her breath hiccoughing in her throat, tears closing her vocal chords off.

“So you had to delay him till I got here…”  Finn finished for her.

“No.”  She sniffed, “No I tried to speed him up, tried to get him to take me sooner, so he wouldn’t be able to hurt you.”  Finn was stunned and he stared at her, not knowing what to think or feel, “So… so when he told me… to…”  She looked away, “To touch him.  “Finn’s jaw clenched, he knew where this was going.  “I thought if I got him to…” Her face pulled into a sneer of disgust.

“You tried to make him cum, so he’d take you from the house before I got here.”  She nodded in response, her eyes locked on the floor.  “You did that to try and save my life.  You tried to protect me.”  He gently raised her face, “you were willing to go with him to a place you might have never gotten out of… a place where he would have hurt you, cut you and raped you and tortured you… and probably killed you… so that I might not get hurt.”  She nodded, tears of shame blurring her vision of him.  She lowered her eyes and tried to stop her tears. 

“You call yourself a coward?”  He asked and she looked up at him bewildered.  “I can’t believe you did that for me.”  Rae saw the look on his face and realised he was serious.

“But it didn’t work, I couldn’t… couldn’t do it properly… and I failed you.”  She cried.

“Well I nearly died so my plan didn’t exactly pan out either.”  He answered, he shook his head and pulled her into his arms, “So that’s what were happening when I came in?”  She nodded and Finn took a deep breath.  “I love you girl.  You’re a fierce warrior.”  He whispered to her and she sobbed gently.  “Let’s get away from this mirror yeah?”  He asked her and she led the way back to the bed.  “I’ll get you a new mirror.”  And she smiled.

“Alright.”  She sat on the bed and he knelt in front of her again, taking her into his arms and kissing her deeply. 

“Where do you want me to touch you?”  He thought about it and added, “Where do you want me to not touch you?”

“I always want you to touch me.”  She answered her fingers went to his mouth, “everywhere.”  He kissed her and let his hands slowly, gently, caress her body. 

“We don’t have to make love if you don’t want to.”  He said honestly, “There are some bruises and cuts that I can’t see.”  He touched stroked her hair, “and I don’t wanna make them worse by wanting you so much… or by making you feel like you owe me or you have to or you should… or like this is something you should do to get over it.”  He gently kissed her lips, “I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to be alright.”  He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes, “because the most important thing to me Rae, is that you’re alright.”  

“No.”  Rae responded, “No I need you to make love to me.”  She answered.  Finn swallowed and looked down at her cut. 

“And you’ll be alright?  You’ll tell me if…”

“I’ll always tell you if something’s not right.”  Finn nodded and kissed her lips gently.  She reached down and carefully undid his pants, she started to laugh through her tears and his kisses.

“What?”  He started to grin, her laughter infectious.

“How are we gonna do this?”  She asked, “Look at us!”  Her humour stopped short as she looked down at his stapled wound.

“We’ll find a way.”  He grinned, “We always do.”  He put his hands over hers and helped her take his pants off slowly.  She stood up in front of him and he kissed her stomach gently, avoiding her stitches and slowly pulled her pants down.  When she stood before him naked he put his arms around her and rested his head on her stomach, and she ran her fingers through his hair.  His normal smooth ascent was marred by having to use the drawers to get up, protecting his wound and they both started to laugh softly, pain and fear still screeching through their bodies and tempering all good feelings. 

“Do you wanna try me on top?”  She asked and Finn shook his head.

“I wanna crawl between your thighs Mrs Nelson.”  He kissed her and she slowly sat and then laid on the bad, Finn carefully traveling with her until he paused between her thighs and carefully found a way to support himself without too much difficulty.  He managed to stroke her hair and keep his eyes on hers as he slowly slid inside of her warmth.  He gasped as if he’d never experienced her before, and saw her mouth open in the same gasp.  She wrapped her arms around him and the warmth of her body felt like home.  

“I love you.”  She whispered to him her thighs tightening around him, enveloping him.

“I love you.”  He pushed himself to be as deep inside of her as he could and moved with slow gentle movements, staying as deep as he could, seeking out her lips, kissing her slowly with all the emotion he had in him, all is love, all his admiration for her, all the fear of losing her, everything he was.

He found himself crying and was not surprised to see tears on her cheeks.  He looked at her face, more in love than ever.  Rae could feel herself falling in love with him all over again as they made love, their bodies barely moving, but every cell in their bodies sung in resonance with each other as if their souls were united as well.  Every movement, every breath was synchronised with no thought, matched with no pre-empting.  They were one, they were united completely.  Rae stayed in the moment completely, her whole being focused on Finn, thoughts of other things gone, and she knew he was equally in the present moment. 

They lost track of time passing, of the world around them, of anything but their bodies united in love. 

A slow building of Rae’s pleasure started to feel like liquor in her belly, filling her up with a giddy warmth.  She moaned deeply and marvelled to hear him moaning in the same moment.  But they did not speed up for their growing orgasm, they stayed slow, focused on each other, and the heat spread through them slowly, gently peaking in long simultaneously drawn out orgasms.

“I love you Rae.”  He whispered as he emptied himself into her.

“I love you.”  She gasped, “Finn.”  The vulnerability and painful honesty of their love making made them pause, staring into each other’s eyes.

“You really are the one Rae.”  He breathed, “there’s no one, nothing else, I want.”  She stroked his face, “Or need.  I only see you.  You really are the love of my life.”  She smiled and nodded.

“I know exactly what you mean.”  She whispered, “You’re my everything.”  They kissed, a feeling of completeness passing between them. 

Neither of them wanted to disentangle their bodies.  But slowly the world crept in and Rae worried for Finn and he had to acknowledge that he ached.  So he carefully sat up and looked down at his wound, gently weeping. 

“Oh no.”  Rae said when she noticed the weep.

“It’s fine.”  He said.  “The pamphlet said it were normal.”  He looked up at her, “I love you.”  He grinned, “I feel like I can’t stop saying it now!”

“I know!” Rae grinned, almost gushing, “It’s like the words are bursting from me.  Like… I dunno… I feel so much love for you, that I just want to say it all the time... no I have to say it all the time.”

“Aye!”  He agreed, “I dunno how I went this long without telling you how much I love you.”  She paused and looked at his face.

“Can’t believe the fittest lad in school is telling me that.”  He laughed, and she blushed and bit her bottom lip happily, “I still can’t believe that I get to touch you.”  She smiled, “What did I do deserve you?”  She shook her head, “I mean I’m just me.”

“Aye exactly.”  He said meaningfully.

“Oh but Finn, you don’t understand how beautiful y’are.”  She gushed and he was taken by how perfect she was in that moment, “How your eyes sit so perfectly under those eyebrows, and the colour of your eyes, and the way you look at me… and your jawline is like some perfect example o’ sexiness.”  He listened, feeling like he did when he read her diary, but even more, almost as if he were drunk on her enthusiasm, “And your mouth… your mouth is… I can’t even find words for how beautiful your mouth is… I could sit and look at it for days.  And your arms Finn… they’re so sexy, the muscles in them make me wanna weep… and I get to touch them.”  She seemed absurdly pleased with herself and Finn could do nothing but smile at her, “Every time I see you naked I honestly feel as though I’ve fallen into some alternate universe where there is nothing wrong or bad in the world ever, anywhere, because your naked body actually makes the whole world a better place.”  Finn started to laugh, “Don’t laugh!”  She said. “You have no idea how perfect y’are.”

“I know how perfect you think I am, and that’s all that matters to me.”  He answered honestly, and she blushed and smiled shyly.  “You haven’t gotten to me arse yet, so I’m not ready for you to stop.”  Finn teased.

“Stop it!”  She hit his arm lightly, embarrassed.  But they shared a grin, the tension, pain and fear of the past week starting to ease. 

“Shower?”  He slowly got up and reached out a hand to her and she took it smiling, feeling almost as if she could stand to be in her room on her own one day.  But not now.  Right now the only way she’d be in this house is if Finn were here too. 

“I do like how quickly your shower warms up.”  He put his hand under the running water and Rae tried to find her brush; her hair desperately needed a good brush. 

“My brush is gone.”  She said softly. 

“I there anything else missing?”  He asked and she went back out to her room, the first place she looked was her underwear draw. 

“The green underwear.”  She called back to him and he came to the doorway.

“So that fucker had time to steal some of your stuff before the fuzz got here.  Fucking pathetic!”  He said angrily. 

“You know what, I’m gonna go through all my stuff later.  Cos right now we’re having a moment, and I’m not gonna let him ruin it.”  She answered resolutely walking back to him.  And Finn took a deep calming breath.

“Agreed.”  He took her into his arms and kissed her lips, “Can I wash you?” 

“Well I have missed it.”  She grinned as she got into the shower and invited him in.  She carefully soaped his body, avoiding the wound, but revelling in the feel of him beneath her hands.  “I think I may have missed this more though.”  She said as she ran her soapy hand along the length of his cock.  He chuckled and leaned against the wall of the shower and watched her move as she bent down to wash his legs. 

When it was his turn to wash Rae, Finn took his time, taking in every inch of her as he ran the soap over her.  Washing Rae was one of this favourite things to do and he took it very seriously.  And he intended to wash all of her perfectly, including conditioning her hair. 

When he pulled his hand away from washing her vagina there was blood and he looked down at it confused.

“Rae?”  He sounded panicked and she looked at his hand.

“Oh period.”  She groaned.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“It’s due.”  She shook her head and he groaned. 

“I just got out o’ hospital!”  He bemoaned and she chuckled grimly. 

“I think there’s a reason why they call it the curse.” 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Colour me Once’ by Violent Femmes _

 

_Dear Diary_

_I’m sorry it’s been so many weeks since I last wrote._

_So much has happened since then, but also so little._

_I’ve just been so busy I haven’t even had the time to wipe me own arse!_

Rae read over her last diary entry and shook her head as Archie and Chop packed things into her car, Finn smoking and sitting beside her; sometimes he still felt weak and he had promised her he wouldn’t push himself too hard. 

 

_The last time I wrote me period had just started and we was at my place for the first time since… you know…_

_That were so long ago.  I’ve actually had another period since then and I can tell you that they’re not getting any less frustrating.  Possibly even more!_

_Anyway, since I last wrote, Finn and I are all caught up on our school work, and he got an A on his English essay, should o’ seen his face!  He were so pleased with himself.  And his da nearly peed himself he were so happy.  I got an A+ but I only got a B on me biology which I don’t mind really.  Finn’s actually really clever. He always thought he were so dumb, but he’s so smart.  I think he were just bored.  We’re starting on poetry, probably Yeats, after the break and I know he’s not too happy about that.  But I know he’ll be fine!_

_And diary, he’s still just as sexy as ever.  I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of looking at him.  He’s told me that he loves me like 14, 000 times now and I never get tired of hearing him say those words._

_He really is the perfect man._

_What else?_

_Rhys started Finn on a rehabilitation regime the first day Finn were out o’ hospital.  I were right worried about it but Rhys really knows what he’s doing and Finn’s strength has been returning much faster than expected, Dr Kraus comments on it every time she sees him.  The wound looks a lot better now, more healed up, he can swim and jog and stuff, but still no heavy boxing or real hard fucking.  It takes time diary.  Finn’s pretty impatient to get back to full strength.  I don’t blame him._

_Even though there’s been no sight nor sound of Saul (I hate even writing his name diary) he’s always hanging over me head.  But everyone’s been real good at making sure I’m not left alone and I really like that, cos whenever I am alone, even for a second, panic starts to take me.  I jump at every noise, and I get real scared he’s gonna come for me.  Sometimes I wake up at night screaming, diary.  Finn thinks it’s always just remembering what happened, but it’s more than that.  It’s seeing Finn pass out, it’s being so utterly powerless to stop anything, it’s knowing it could happen again.  I try not to think about it._

_I wonder if this is how Chloe feels about Ian and the way he threatened to come after her, and all the things he did to her.  It should have been so clear it were Saul stalking me, shit sticks together don’t it?_

_Um…_

_Mum and Karim came back from Tunisia, both with tans… bastards.  And mum started therapy with some mother’s group for women with post natal depression.  I think she’s got pills to take too.  It’s really settled her mood a lot, but I’m still quite worried about her.  When I told her what had happened with Saul, she were right upset and she decided to change the carpet in me room.  Which I’m glad about.  But she been right on edge since then and every time she sees Finn shirtless she looks at his scar and shakes her head, real upset like.  Karim were pretty upset too and he’s put better locks on all the windows and we got an alarm system now.  Much safer.  But it cost so much that we got a little bit of debt now and I know how that stresses me mum.  But I’m so glad they did it   I feel a lot better and safer, but I still won’t be in the house without Finn, and mum and Karim are being pretty good about that._

_Aiesha is so big now!  And she never shuts up – always making sounds and fidgeting and staring at things.  And she loves her elephant – constantly throwing it around.  Actually, she kinda throws everything around.  And she grabs everything and puts it in her mouth.  Everything.  She put me diamond in her mouth yester!  And she’s constantly sucking people’s fingers.  Poor Finn; he always ends up taking her when the rest of us are feeling a bit grumpy.  I don’t know how he handles us Earl women so well!_

_Finn had me necklace replaced.  Obviously the diamond is still the same, but the necklace it were on is totally new now.  He had a whole new one made.  I think the old one were too… I dunno tainted to just be repaired.  When he gave it back to me we made love and it were perfect.  He calls me Mrs Nelson all the time now.  Sometimes he’ll still say Miss Earl, but mostly it’s Mrs Nelson.  And I don’t mind which way he goes, because I know he’s the one for me, and I’m the one for him, I’ve never been more sure of anything._

_I found that comb he were buying when… that stuff were happening, and I put it in me drawer in me room.  I want to wear it, but I think it’ll be too painful for him to see.  So maybe in the future I can.  But not now.  Finn’s been through enough.  Sometimes it’s him having the nightmares diary.  But he won’t talk about it.  It takes time._

_What else has happened?_

_Izzy got out of hospital with her cancer in remission, I thought that meant that she were in the clear, but no, that means she’s got like 2 years of different types of chemo to go through to kill it.  But she less fragile now, and she can eat a little more, so that’s good, cos today we’re taking her to the coast for a few days.  The Easter holidays are finally here!_

 

 

Izzy was coughing when Finn and Rae pulled up in their car, Chloe and Archie on the back seat.

“Alright?”  Chop’s voice was filled with concern, his body tense, ready to catch her if she collapsed. 

“I’m fine.”  She said through the coughs, “It’s nothing.”  Chop had been worrying about this outing since they’d organised it.  Izzy was still frail, and her immune system was still compromised.  Her father had told Chop that of he loved Isabella, he wouldn’t take her off to the sea away from her doctors, in danger of catching who knows what.  There was still a lot of tension between Chop and Bradley, but he had apologised to Chop, so Izzy was allowing her father back into her life.  Chop was inclined to agree with Bradley, but Izzy so wanted to do this.  And part of Chop wanted to give her everything she had ever wanted as soon as possible.  Just in case.  But Chop fussed and wouldn’t let her carry anything as they unpacked.  He fretted and was unsure of his decision. 

Izzy shambled over to greet them as they got out of the car, a huge expectant grin on her face.  Archie had organised 3 bedroom caravan with its own bathroom and covered veranda for 3 nights within walking distance to the beach.

“Nice job Arch!”  Finn approved, and Chloe and Rae were dragged by Izzy into the caravan.

“Everyone’s gotta choose a room.”  She was saying.

“I don’t know why she says everyone, when we all know she means the girls are gonna sort this out.”  Chop shook his head.

“Well I know I’ll be in the bunk beds room.”  Archie grinned, “It’s just the two double beds that need to be decided.”  He grabbed a bag and headed into the caravan.  Chop and Finn looked at each other.

“There’s not a chance we’re getting a say in this.”  Finn said and Chop nodded.

“None.”  He agreed as they set about bringing everything in.  For Finn this was an interesting outing because the last time he’d been out this way had been with his mother and father.  He had so many happy photos of himself with his mum at Skegness.  When he looked at them now, he could see that she was sad, but smiling for him.  He tried to not think about any of that.  It was too painful and confusing and there was guilt and shame mixed underneath everything.  He felt tired and knew that he was pushing himself a little today and Dr Kraus would be most annoyed at him if she knew.  Finn felt very beholden to her in regards to his recovery, because she had done the surgery that had saved his life and she travelled from London every two weeks to see him, and she had told him no uncertain terms just how close he had come to dying.  But more importantly he had promised Rae to not push it.  He made a mental note to slow down a little today and went into the caravan. 

As Archie had predicted, he and Chloe were sharing the bunk beds.  Rae had insisted that Chop and Izzy take the larger of the two bedrooms so the tiny room they had was almost filled entirely by bed.

“Oh well this is perfect.”  He grinned as he laid down on the bed.  Rae crawled up beside him and kissed him passionately.  He groaned and his hand found its way under her shirt, feeling the soft skin of her back. 

“D’you know, I heard that groan.”  Archie said, standing at their doorway.  Rae and Finn looked up at him innocently.  “You got a fucking curtain for a door.”  He pulled on the turquoise and red monstrosity that was pretending to be a door, “keep it down.”  He grinned as Finn threw a pillow at him and Rae groaned louder, lustier, sounding an awful lot like an orgasm. 

“Are they at it already?”  Chop asked Archie.

“They’d hardly be at it while I’m standing in the fucking doorway!”  Archie snarked. 

“I dunno, this is Rae and Finn we’re talking about.”  Izzy backed Chop and Rae opened her mouth in surprise.

“We’re not that bad!”  She countered, laughing.

“Except for that time you actually did shag in front o’ me.”  Archie reminded them.

“You’re fucking dead from the neck up, aren’t you?”  Finn shook his head at Archie who gave him the finger. 

“You walked in!”  Rae said, “You make it sound like we just up and did stuff while you was sitting there.” 

“You five need to stop talking about sex when some of us aren’t getting any.”  Chloe said as she took her top off, a bikini top already on underneath.  “Let’s get to the fucking beach!” 

Izzy started to jiggle excitedly.  And Archie ducked back into his room to get changed.  Finn grinned at Rae and she pulled a face that told him she was nervous.  He leaned over and kissed her again. 

“Let’s go!”  Izzy grinned, but Chop stopped her as she started to go out the door.

“Sunscreen.”  He ordered and gave an unimpressed look towards the sunny outside world, “How can it be so bloody hot when it’s only spring?”  Chop complained.  There had been a heatwave over the past few days, everyone but Chop thought this was good news.  Chop was worried that Izzy would get sunburned; the chemotherapy made her more susceptible to it.  Izzy groaned in frustration but took her shirt off, also already wearing her swimmers.

Finn got up and closed the curtain to their room so he could get changed.  Rae paused and watched Finn undressing.  He moved much easier now, as if he’d almost forgotten the scar that still rose from his skin in an angry red gash.  Rae still found it hard to look at that scar; it was a reminder of the single most traumatic day of her life. 

She slowly put her swimming costume on and saw Finn grinning at her. 

“Same one you was wearing the first time I saw you half naked.”  He commented when he saw her looking at him.  He slipped his hands over her hips, his pelvis tilted towards her and kissed her lustily.  “I been keen to get you back in water since Sutherland.”  He said in a low voice and she gave him a grim look.  “What?”

“Nothing.”  She replied and put her hand to the necklace.  “I think I should take it off for the beach, I don’t wanna risk losing it.”  She frowned.  Finn reached his hands up to undo the clasp.  He gently took it off and look at the pink scars around her neck.  Her ran his fingers down her cheek and allowed the feelings of gratitude that she was still alive flood over him. 

“Shall we?”  He motioned towards the door.

“I’ll be there in a sec.”  He nodded and went through the curtain, his black board shorts clinging to his arse in a way that made Rae stare longingly at him as he left. 

When Rae came out moments later, Izzy was refusing to put on a hat that Chop was insisting she wear.  Finn looked over to her and the grin on his face froze.  She was wearing a gigantic shirt that covered her right down to just above her knees. 

“C’mon then!”  Archie started heading off to the beach Chloe, Izzy and Chop in tow.  Finn held out his hand to Rae and she took it meekly.  He decided to abstain from commenting on the shirt; if it made her happy, she could wear whatever she wanted. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Ordinary World’ by Duran Duran _

 

Izzy’s breath caught in her throat as she looked out across the blue water stretching on forever.  A gentle breeze played with the hat that she’d eventually agreed to wear.  Chop gently slipped a hand around her waist and watched her from the corner of his eyes. 

_To think I might have died without seeing this._

Her eyes fell to the shoreline, the waves gently caressing the yellow sand; the sound of the waves never ceasing was the most beautiful music she’d ever heard. 

_It goes on forever._

_Or as forever as I’ll ever understand._

_I don’t think people can understand what forever really means cos we die.  So soon._

Izzy turned her eyes to take in her friends, all watching the ocean move against the shoreline. 

Archie stood with a bunch of towels in his hands and grinned happily.  Finn had snuck his hand down to Rae’s arse and Izzy had to smile at his addiction to Rae.  She saw the wind flicking Chloe and Rae’s hair back and thought of how her own hair would have looked in this breeze as she looked back at the ocean.  But her face, her head… all of her hair was completely gone.  She had refused to wear a wig or a scarf.  She didn’t even know why she refused.  She just didn’t see the point in trying to hide this, or deny it in anyway.  She took a deep breath the ocean air stinging her as the breeze whipped up.  Her lungs protested slightly at the deep breath, but she wasn’t going to miss this for anything.  She turned to Chop, his face forward, but his eyes turned to her. 

“I love you.”  She whispered to him, “thank you for doing this for me.”  Chop stroked her face and kissed her gently before she turned back to look at the water.

She stepped into the sand and giggled when she felt the heat of the sun on the tiny granules.  She sunk into the sand slightly, the coarse grains sliding between her toes and she looked down at the sand with joy. 

She slipped off her hat and let it drop, the wind picking it up and carrying it back towards their caravan.  Chop tried to catch it, but he was too slow.  He grimaced, but she was gone, walking slowly towards the water, her eyes transfixed on the sparkling waves. 

Chop felt his guts clench when he noticed a few people turn to look at her; her bald head shining in the sunlight.  He wanted to shake those people, tell them that they weren’t fucking helping, and why did they have to stare?

But she didn’t see them.  She was in her own world.  Chop shoved his things into Archie’s already full arms and set out after her. 

She stopped at the edge of the water and gasped as the cold water licked her toes.  It was such a strange, but not unwelcome, contrast, the hot sun beating down on her back, the cold water on her feet. 

_Life is so impermanent._

_I never really understood that until now._

_Death is stalking us all from the moment we draw our first breath._

_I feel as though I’ve never lived my life._

_And it could end at any moment._

_I know that too well._

Her eyes scanned the horizon. 

_How can the ocean just go on forever?_

_When nothing else does?_

_When life doesn’t?_

She walked further into the water, feeling all the pain and uncertainty, all the tears in the middle of the night when no one else was around, falling away from her. 

_Pascal said that we’d all die alone._

_I’ve only just started to understand that.  It don’t mean physically, it mean mentally._

_There can be a hundred people there… or just your lover and some doctors… or no one… it makes no difference.  Because you’re always alone with your own thoughts._

_And what are the thoughts that go through your head when you’re dying?_

_Right at that moment when you see the light leave someone’s eyes; are there any thoughts?  Are you really alone?_

_I so want it to not be true._

_Because if it is…_

She couldn’t let herself finish that thought.  Her fingers unconsciously traced along her scar as she took another deep breath, the salt air steadying her urge to cry. 

The heaviness that she had felt was lifting as the water supported her. 

She kept going, wanting to go as deep into the ocean as she could.  Perhaps she’d swim until she couldn’t see the shore. 

But Chop was beside her, and he made her remember herself.  She laughed when she saw his concern and threw her arms around his neck.  He picked her up out of the water into his arms and plunged deeper into the ocean with a grin on his face. 

Archie looked up from his careful setting up of their towels when Izzy squealed in delight loudly.  Chop was laughing as he let her dunk him. 

“I’ll set up.”  Rae said, “You guys go!”  Chloe grinned and ran toward the water, Archie following closely.  Rae’s eyes scanned the beach.  There were about a 30 or so people lounging about on the sand nearby, another dozen in the water.  She saw the looks Izzy was getting.  There was a group of five beautiful girls lounging in bikinis that Rae eyed as they laughed and joked, looking at fit boys.  She’d seen them glance at Izzy and whisper together.  But now they seemed occupied by a bunch of lads running around with a football. 

“I might not swim.”  Rae said softly, the huge shirt flapping about her in the breeze.  Finn furrowed his brows and looked out at the ocean.

“But it’s perfect weather.”  He looked back at her, “why wouldn’t you want to swim?”  She stared out at the water; she so wanted to swim, but she couldn’t bring herself to be seen in font of this many people. 

“Because it’s kinda crowded.”  Finn put her hand on his chest.

“You feel me heartbeat?”  He asked carefully.

“It’s not a panic attack.”  She looked away, not wanting to say what the problem was, but knowing Finn wouldn’t leave it alone, “I’m too fat.”  The words were barely audible, but she saw Finn pull back from her and look at her long and hard.  He looked around the beach at all the people, and then at the water and considered this.

“Nope.”  He said after a while.

“Nope?”  She repeated.

“Aye that’s what I said.”  He said, the stubbornness already clear, “You’re gonna come swimming with me Rae Nelson, cos you’re me girl and I wanna frolic in the water with you.”

“Frolic?”  She asked bemused and he nodded resolutely, but she shook her head, “I can’t Finn… it’s embarrassing.”  She whispered. 

“I’m not listening to you.”  He said with a shrug, “get your shirt off, let’s go.”  He ordered.

“Finn!”  She almost stomped her foot she was so cross with him.

“You can get as cross as you like, but I’m not listening to you when you’re talking utter bullshite like this.  Anything else you say I’ll listen to for hours, but not shite like this.”  She opened her mouth to reply but he kept speaking, “you have a very wrong opinion of yourself.”  He said firmly, “so I’m not listening to that bullshite.  That’s it.”

“It’s not my opinion I’m worried about.”  Rae retorted.

“Why would you be worried about a bunch o’ strangers?”

“Cos they’ll laugh.”

“I’ll punch ‘em all!”  He grinned.

“You can’t punch ‘em all!”  She tried to stay cross.

“Watch me!”

“What if it’s a 10 year old?”

“Then he’ll of learned an important lesson about how bullshite his opinion were!”  Finn said with a straight face, his eyes sparkling with mirth, “so maybe other people have a very wrong opinion of you too.  You can’t let that control you.”  He touched her face and then grinned, “In fact, you know what?  The only person in the world that has an accurate, totally non-bullshite opinion about you, is me.”  He said with a smug grin, “so we’ll be going with my opinion about this kind o’ stuff from now on.”  Rae narrowed her eyes at him, “you’re perfect.”  He said meaningfully, “you’re beautiful.  I love you.”  He smiled and she had to force herself to not return the smile, “Now come swim with me.”

She looked down, willing herself to be brave enough to take the shirt off, but Finn’s lips were on hers, his body pressed against her, his kiss insistent, powerfully sexual, and her body responded to him, melting into his sensually.  She felt his hands on her hips and sighed softly as they continued up her body.  Before she knew it he had lifted the shirt off her and she stood there in his arms as he threw the shirt to the ground.  He kissed her again, one hand squeezing her arse while the fingers of his other slid under one of the straps to her swimmers, it was obvious he had to stop himself from slipping the strap from her shoulder.  He kissed from her mouth, down her chin and neck to her shoulder, his fingers gently tugging on the strap.  His other hand moved up her back, writing words on her bare back.

_I want you_

_I love you_

She sighed, almost feeling as beautiful and sexy as he thought she was. 

“You’re perfect.”  He murmured as his hands went to her hair, “so beautiful.  So sexy.”  He looked in her eyes, “Now come frolic.”  His lips pushed out as he said that word, a huge grin on his face, his mouth still open even when he’d stop speaking.  Rae couldn’t stop starting at his face. 

“I love you.”  She answered seriously, “You are far too good for me.”

“Rubbish.”  He took her hand and nodded towards the water, “ready?”  She nodded, happiness swelling up her chest. 

Finn began to lead her towards the water but she stepped out first, wanting to be the one to lead the way.  Wanting to hold her head high.  Finn took her lead gladly, and didn’t notice if anyone stared; he was too busy staring. 

 

 

 

 

_‘I wanna Get High’ by Cypress Hill_

 

Rae leaned into Finn as she sat happily on the sand.  Chop threw another log on the bonfire and settled down beside Izzy.  Rae didn’t even mind that there were heaps of other people here; lots of people their age.  Didn’t mind that the bikini girls from earlier were sitting on the other side of the bonfire eyeing Finn, and Chop and Archie for that matter.  She was still on a high from jumping around in the ocean all afternoon with the gang.  Someone put on a radio and a bong was started up, bottles of beer already in everyone’s hands. 

The bong came their way and Finn checked the cone.

“Need repacking?”  Asked the guy that had brought the drugs.

“I think so.”  Finn answered and leaned over to him.

“Cool man.”  He took the bong back, “purple Buddha.”  He said as packed the cone.  “Come get some from me any time you want.”

“Alright.”  Finn tried not to grin, he looked back at Rae who was chatting with Izzy and Chloe, clearly scoping out boys for Chloe.

“I’m Woody.  That big bird your lass?”  He asked and Finn looked back at him.

“Yeah.”  Finn replied slowly, not sure where this was going.

“You bring her with you, and I’ll give you weed for free.”  He winked and handed the bong back. 

“Alright.”  Finn said with a confused look, but he watched as Woody wrote down his address and number and handed it to him.  “Why?”

“Cos I like her.”  Woody said with a grin.

“But she with me.”

“Yeah.  I respect that dude.  But it don’t mean I don’t like her.”  He shrugged. 

“So you live round here?”  Finn gauged Woody with a wary eye.

“Yeah man.  It’s cool.  But sometimes I’m up in Stamford with me dad.  Where you live?”  His eyes strayed to Rae and Finn felt his heckled raise.

“Stamford.”

“Great maybe we’ll catch up.  Get high.  Talk shit.  Quote Queen lyrics.”

“Queen lyrics?”

“Fat bottomed girls, you make the rocking world go round.”  Woody laughed and played with his long hair.  He had a grungy feel to him, as if the early 90s had never quite left him. 

“Oh right.”  Finn shook his head, not sure what to make of him. 

“Ah, if she weren’t your girl mate, I’d been all up in her knickers by now.”  Steve looked up at the stars philosophically, “but you gotta respect love man.”  He looked back at Finn, “cos loves is what holds the whole world together.  All the tiny spaces between atoms are filled up with love gluing everything together perfectly.”  He grinned, “If you don’t respect love man… you deserve to be shat on… and for maggots to eat that shit off you… but then keep going through to your eyes.”  Finn nodded slowly.

“Yeah…”  

“I knew you’d get it man.”  Steve nodded, “gonna smoke that?”  Finn looked down at the bong he was holding, having totally forgotten it.

“Aye.”  He nodded and Woody handed him a large baggie of pot. 

“Enjoy man.”  Woody grinned as he got up and wondered off, Finn watching him leave, shaking his head.  He pulled his lighter out and pulled on the bong deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs he passed the bong on to Rae who took the lighter and looked at the bong, trying to hide her confusion.  Finn tried to hold his laughter in, trying to keep the smoke in as long as he could but ended up laughing at her.  He moved back in closely to her and pointed at the top of the bong; a coke bottle with a hole punched in it, a length of hose coming out of the hole, water in the bottom of the coke bottle.

“Put your lips on the top there.”  He took the lighter back, “Hold your finger over that little hole there.”  He pointed out a small hole three quarters of the way up the bottle, “When I light the cone down here, you just suck, right?”  She nodded and put her mouth on the top of the bottle.  Finn lit the marijuana that was packed in a metal cone at the end of the hose.  Rae sucked and the water bubbled.  “Go as deep as you can and hold it in.”  When Rae had finished Finn pulled another and passed it on to Chop. 

“Holy fuck.”  Rae aid as she slowly let the smoke out. 

“How d’you feel?”

“Really good.”  She nodded slowly a deep, mellow relaxation spreading through her.  Chop nearly didn’t let Izzy have any but she gave him such an angry glare that he gave in very quickly. 

Finn leaned into Rae and kissed her slowly and messily and she loved the way everything felt so slow and easy going.  She giggled when she felt his hand travelling up her thighs over her pants, nestling on her cunt firmly.

“There’s so many people around.”  She giggled.

“So?”  He kissed her neck, “let’s fuck.”  She felt herself swaying slowly to the music, her body lazily heating up.

“Finn.”  Rae turned her head to Archie, her brain feeling like it was in a bowl of jelly, she giggled.

“Finn.”  Archie repeated, “Let’s get some more beer.”  Finn got up slowly and grinned at her.

“To be continued Miss Earl.”

“Alright Mr Earl.”  He grinned and giggled slowly as he bent over for another kiss. 

“Come on fucker.”  Chop tapped Finn’s arse and Finn turned to go with Chop and Archie happily. 

Rae turned to Chloe and Izzy, both with slightly glazed over eyes.  Chloe grinned and that started all three girls off laughing.  They scooted in to be sitting together.

“That guy’s looking at you.”  Izzy said to Chloe and Chloe turned to stare at him. 

“Yes I think he is.”  She grinned.

“Do you think you’re ready?”  Rae asked as she stared at the fire thoughtfully.  Chloe looked into the fire, in an oddly philosophical mood.

“Who can say? What does ready mean?”  She shrugged, “the world is full of pain and sorrow. And only through the experience of pleasure and joy can we combat that pain and sorrow.”

“You’re so right.”  Rae answered as if her eyes had been opened to some great truth.

“I know.”  Chloe nodded seriously, her eyes straying back to the fit lad that had been looking at her.  A tall lanky guy approached them and all three girls looked up at him with curiosity. 

“I saw you swimming earlier.”  He said to Izzy, “what happened to your head?”  Chloe and Rae both opened their mouths in shock, Rae scrambling with her hazy mind to come up with a retort.  But Izzy grinned.

“Cancer!”  She said as if she were declaring that they could all have puppies and kittens.  She pulled aside her shirt to show her left collarbone, the port scar obvious, “This is where they put the drugs in me.”  She giggled and looked up at him.  “I just did the induction phase… next I’m onto the consolidation phase.”

“So you still got it?”

“I still got it!”  She laughed and flopped back into the sand.

“What’s your name?”  He asked as he sat down, Chloe and Rae giving him a slight sneer.

“Izzy.”

“Wanna hang out Izzy?”

 

 

Finn pulled up his shirt and looked down at his scar, Archie was singing loudly as they gathered slabs of beer to take back.  Their caravan was filled with alcohol.  Chop poked the scar and Finn laughed. 

“Stop the foreplay you two and help out.”  Archie ordered and Finn dropped his shirt and picked up a slab.  Eventually they each carried 2 slabs, one on each shoulder, they were met with a general cheer as they returned.  They found the barrels filled with ice and started to put the beer in. 

“Hi.”  A girl in a bikini top and pair of jeans put her hand on Archie’s lower back and smiled winningly at him.

“Hi.”  Archie kept unpacking the beer slowly. 

“D’you wanna maybe hang out tonight?”  She let her hand drop to his arse and Archie’s smile froze on his lips.

“I don’t think me boyfriend’d like that.”  He shrugged, “sorry.”  He continued to unpack the slab and the girl pulled her hand off him like he might be diseased.

“You’re a faggot?” 

“The fuck you say?”  Chop snapped.

“You his boyfriend?”  She asked with a sneer.

“That’s me actually.”  Finn answered.

“I saw you making out with that fat slag.”  She looked disgusted. 

“Yeah we’re all in it together.”  Archie answered.

“Aye, and she’s our queen.  We do whatever she says.”  Finn added with a grin.

“Yeah, we’re gonna have a great time the six of us fucking all night tonight.”  Chop agreed. 

“Who’s arsehole d’you think you’ll fuck first?”  Finn asked them both.

“Well obviously mine will get fucked first, by everyone, cos I’m the biggest faggot.”  Archie looked at the girl.

“The girls do like their strap-ons.”  Chop added.

“You’re disgusting.”  The girl started to back off.

“Not nearly as disgusting as you.”  Finn shot back.  Archie started to giggle as soon as she was out of ear shot. 

“I don’t even know… how… it’s an issue.”  Finn shook his head in disbelief and kept unpacking. 

“It doesn’t affect her in any way.”  Archie agreed.

“Except that Archie lad won’t be slipping her the pink.”  Chop laughed.

“Strap ons?”  Archie asked him and Chop started to laugh more.

“You should o’ seen some o’ the pornos I used to watch!”

 

 

When the boys returned the three girls were dancing slowly together.  Chop and Finn had to stop as they watched the three girls clinging to each other, slowly moving to the music, laughing, looking they were in no way ever interested in male company.  Archie turned to Finn and Chop and started laughing. 

“What?”  Chop asked.

“You two!”  He laughed.  “Halfway between being turned on and wanting ‘em to stop.”  Archie shook his head and went up to them and they started to dance with him, Chloe putting one of arms around his shoulders.  Finn lowered his yes for a moment and looked up at Rae through his eyebrows, founding the way she moved to be intrinsically sexual.  He was gonna have her tonight.  He grinned and joined in the dancing, Rae’s arms going around his waist.  Izzy grinned at Chop and motioned for him to come over.

“Quite a sexy dance you girls were doing.”  Chop said as he took her into his arms.

“There was some fucker hitting on Izzy, who wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Chloe said, “So I told him we was lesbians.”  She laughed, “Works every time.”  Chop nodded in response and wrapped his arms possessively around Izzy, who laughed happily. 

“We’re gonna play titanic later on tonight.”  Chop whispered in her ear and she looked at him confused, “You be the ocean and I’ll go down on you.”  Izzy opened her mouth in surprise at him and he kissed her neck slowly.  She giggled, not knowing how to take what he’d said. 

“Another cone!”  Rae declared and Finn led her to their stuff, the bong still sitting there.  He looked over and saw another three bongs going around the various group of people.  The rest of the gang came over and sat with them, watching Finn clean the cone out and start packing another.  They each pulled another cone.

“Go’ I’m hungry.”  Izzy suddenly said.

“Let’s head back to the caravan.”  Finn started to pack up the stuff.

“We can’t take the drugs can we?”  Chop asked.

“Aye, Steve gave ‘em to me.”

“What?  Why?  How much did they cost?”  Chop asked.

“Nothing.”  Finn shrugged.

“That lad wants to bury his cock in you then.”  Chock shook his head, “There’s easily a couple hundred quid o’ pot here.”

“Let’s see how much we can get through tonight.”  Finn grinned, deciding not to say that it was actually Rae Steve liked.  Rae was wary of the idea of guys liking her; more so than ever. 

They meandered back to the caravan.  Rae singing loudly, Chloe and Izzy dancing around together, the boys carrying all their gear. 

In the caravan they each did another cone.  Rae’s head was swimming slowly.  She crawled onto Finn’s lap and started to kiss him.

“We’re still here guys.”  Archie laughed.  But they kept kissing messily.  Izzy ate all the junk food Chop had pulled out of the bags for her and fidgeted with her port scar.  Rae, still straddling Finn, nestled her head on his shoulder, her face against his neck and listened to them talking.  Finn’s hands moved slowly up and down her body, from her upper back down past her arse to her thighs and ankles.  It was weird how uncoordinated, but totally in control she felt. 

“Don’t play with your port scar.”  Chloe said slowly to Izzy, “It’ll scar worse.”

“Does it hurt?”  Archie asked.  There was a tube under her skin there that they used to administer chemotherapy drugs to her, because the drugs themselves could destroy her flesh and skin; this tube ensured it went straight into her blood. 

“Not as much as you’d think.”  She shrugged. 

“It’s like that time I smacked me head on the curb, remember?”  Chop said slowly, “bled like a bitch but it didn’t hurt.”

“That’s a vulgar phrase.”  Chloe said through slitted, red eyes. 

“Sorry.”  He answered cheerily.

“Catheter don’t hurt as much as you expect.”  Finn added.

“What’s a fucking catheter?”

“It’s a tube they shove up your dick so you can pee.”  Finn started laughing as he spoke seeing the horrified looks on Chop and Archie’s faces.

“What…?”  Chop’s hands crept to his groin and covered himself. 

“That sounds fucking painful.”  Archie shook his head. 

“Sometimes it hurts, like when they put it in or take it out, or if you catch it wrong, but mostly you hardly notice it.”

“How can you not notice a tube in your fucking cock?”  Chop asked almost outraged at the idea.  But everyone was giggling and falling about laughing.  “Does his dick still work proper after that?”  Chop asked Rae.

“Why yes it does Choppy Chop.”  Rae answered, “Does-” But Finn was kissing her again before she had chance to ask Chop if his cock worked properly; this was by lucky chance, not design.

“So Izzy, I heard Candace saying shit about you.”  Archie said, “Need me to get Chloe to punch her.”  Chloe laughed loudly.

“I’m not gonna punch her!  Get Rae to do it – she split Finn’s lip.” 

“And he liked it!”  Chop laughed. 

“I did!”  He chortled, “Like a strong girl.”  He looked at Rae and she was blushing furiously, “gonna tie me up again?”  A huge uproar of laughter greeted this and Rae laughed as she buried her face in his shoulder. 

“Isn’t that all anyone wants in a relationship?  Good BDSM?”  Archie laughed. 

“Shut up Archie!”  Chloe laughed, “I can’t even believe you know what BDSM is!”

“Why does everyone think I’m the vanilla one?”  Archie was laughing quite hard now.  Finn noticed Chop saying something in Izzy’s ear and her turning to him surprised and blushing slightly.  Chop’s hand started to travel up her thigh and she stopped him from going too high, but he whispered in her ear again and she giggle slightly, no one really noticing as Chloe and Archie debated. 

“Cos y‘are!”  Chloe said, “Or you used to be.”  Chop’s hand was under Izzy’s skirt now and Finn looked away, trying not to be too pleased with himself. 

“Wait, why was Candace talking shit about Izzy though?”  Rae asked and Finn shook his head internally, Izzy’s focus shifted from what Chop was doing to Rae.  Finn’s eyes met with Chop’s for a moment, Finn acknowledging the frustration in his eyes and giving him a quick nod.  It was Finn’s job to play wingman, to run interference. 

Izzy crunched on some chips as she answered.

“When Chop and me was living next door to each other, he was dating Candace, and she were me best mate.  When she found out I liked Chop we fought, and then I moved away, so we never really made up.”  Izzy took another mouthful of food; this being the most she’d eaten since she was diagnosed.  “When I got back, she told me that Chop had dumped her, painfully.”  Chop giggled guiltily, “and told me I could have him, she were kinda bitter, so I said it would never happen…”  She pulled a face, “when it did happen, she were right angry with me.”  She looked at the roof philosophically, “I been feeling real bad about it, but why should I?”  Chop didn’t break up with her on account o’ me.”  Izzy said slowly, “and why can’t I be with him just cos Candace was once me mate?” 

“True.”  Chloe answered sagely.  Chop leaned over to Izzy and whispered something to her again and Finn watched her cheeks colour. 

“How’s Tom?”  He asked Archie loudly, before one of the girls could ask any more about Candace. 

“He fucks like a fucking jackhammer!”  Archie laughed and ate some crisps.  Everyone laughed and Finn encouraged him to continue.  As Archie spoke Finn whispered into Rae’s ear.

“Chop’s using the stuff I told him to do to make Izzy scream.”  Rae looked at him.

“You spoke to him?”  She barely breathed and he nodded.  She slowly turned to see Chop whispering to Izzy, her breath was held, her eyes on the floor, a look of desire on her face.  And Chop’s hands were deep under Izzy’s skirt.  “Looks familiar.”  She said softly and Finn grinned, biting his bottom lip. 

“Run interference with me?”  He asked her softly.

“Aye, of course!”  She hissed excitedly. 

Between them Finn and Rae stopped anyone from asking Izzy a direct question for over an hour.  Rae, now sitting beside Finn, rather than on his lap, thought she saw a moment where Chop may have actually gotten his fingers into her pants, because Izzy’s face went redder and she gasped softly.  The table hid most of it, for Archie and Chloe, they could see nothing from their angle.  But for Finn and Rae, they had an inkling of what was going on; they didn’t look too closely, but they knew.  And then suddenly Chop stopped, in a move Rae recognised, Chop leaned back casually as if nothing had been happening for the past hour.  Izzy turned her eyes to him, confused and wanting more, but also relieved that it wasn’t happening in front of her friends anymore.  And then she grinned and leaned back to Chop, whispering into his ear and he turned his face to her and nodded a little too eagerly.  Finn cleared his throat, apparently scratching the side of his nose, he held up one finger to Chop when he turned to look at him.  A subtle reminder to remember step 1.  It was only the fact that Chop made Izzy wait another 20 minutes before he stood up, while Chloe was laughing hard about Archie trying to teach her how to throw a punch properly, saying they needed to sleep, that told Finn that he’d gotten the message. 

Izzy practically bolted from the room and Chop sauntered after her, slowly taking a deep breath.

As soon as the flimsy wooden door to their room closed Rae and Finn gave each other a grin.

“I hope it works cos that were a fucking awkward conversation.”  He said softly to Rae and she squeezed his thigh in thanks.  Chloe’s eyes were on the door and she turned them to Rae who grinned and nodded slightly.  Chloe’s grin broadened as she understood that Finn had talked to Chop.  Her eyes turned back to the door.

“I wonder if they’ll be as noisy as you two fuckers.”  Archie said to Rae and Finn, pretty much oblivious to the whole thing, but having seen enough to know they weren’t going to sleep. 

“I hope so.”  Chloe said softly and laughed at Archie’s shake of the head. 

 

 

 

 

_‘When I first met your Ma’ by Paul Kelly (live)_

 

Izzy kissed him frantically, both wanting him more than she could ever remember and knowing that he tended to have a frenetic pace during sex.   But he stopped her, gently prying her fingers from around his neck and stood her in front of him.  His fingers caressed her face and she smiled, self-consciously. 

_Slow down Chop._

His fingers slowly went up to where her hair would normally fall down her face and gently touched her skin.  She looked down.

“Am I ugly Chop?”

“No.”  He answered simply and slowly let his hands slip down her body.  She looked up at him.

“But I got no hair.”

“Doesn’t change how beautiful y’are.”  He shrugged, “you’ll always be my Iz.”  He leaned down to kiss her, lifting her gently as the kiss deepened.  Her arms went back around his neck and he carried her to the bed, her body pressed against his, his arms wrapped around her, their tongues slowly dancing around each other.  He carefully put her onto her feet and slowly slid her clothes from her body, kissing her skin as it was revealed.  Izzy watched him, her body tingling and warm.  She felt her breath deepening, and her belly felt warm and expectant as his lips grazed across her stomach.  He knelt before her, slowly sliding her pants down. 

“You still got some beautiful red hair here.”  He grinned at her cheekily and she giggled, the heat in her body slowly building as his fingers slowly journeyed through her pubic hair.  She expected him to dive in, but he stopped, gently sat her on the bed and raised one of her to his mouth, slowly he kissed her feet and she laughed, a slow groan of desire mixing with her mirth and he licked up her leg. 

“What are you doing Chop?”  She asked huskily.

“Enjoying your body.”  He whispered.  “I decided I wanted to taste you from head to toe.”  He looked up to her and knew he had to slow down even more, so he immediately went to her other foot and she giggled again, her toes wriggling with ticklishness.  Once his tongue made it to her knees he swept her up into his arms suddenly and she gasped loudly with surprise at the suddenness of his movement.  He stood up, cradling her tiny frame in his arms and laid her on the bed, his hands caressing her legs, he slowly began to kiss her thighs.  Her muscles tensed slightly

_Pay attention_

And Chop noticed that she gently parted her legs.  He grinned to himself; she was anticipating what was to come.  He took his time kissing up her inner thighs.  He could feel her body tensing, her breath deepening still more.  And then he saw something he’d never seen before; she tilted her pelvis up towards his mouth as he got closer.

_Finn was fucking right.  That fucker!_

Chop marvelled as he noticed Izzy’s fingers holding onto the blankets, her thighs opened, her pelvis tilted to him, her eyes on him, her mouth parted, her chest rising with desire. 

He kissed her inner thigh, letting his cheek brush against her pubic hair and he heard her whimper.  He licked slowly along her thighs until he was licking her pelvis, and then her lower stomach; bypassing her vagina.  She groaned in disbelief.

“Chop?”  But he didn’t reply, just licked and kissed her stomach slowly.  Her body shivered as he ran his fingers down her side, putting his hands under her arse to tilt her pelvis up more and letting his body brush against her pussy as he kissed her stomach, higher and higher.  She groaned and he had to stop himself laughing.

He knelt, fully clothed between Izzy’s naked thighs and slowly kissed her breasts, his hands having travelled back up her sides to be stroking her face, his mouth taking its time to find her neck, her mouth.  He was taken aback by the intensity in her deep, aching kiss.  She had been longing for this.  She slowly started to undress him, and he let her, focusing on kissing her deeply, and only helping when it was necessary.  He could feel her desire and frustration building. 

_Communicate._

He started to kiss back down her body, gently sucking on her nipple.

“You like that?”  He asked softly and she nodded breathlessly, “harder?”

“Yeah, a little.”  She giggled, unable to believe they were talking about this.  She groaned as he sucked her nipple harder and ended it with a soft bite. 

“Chop…”  She groaned.  He started on the other nipple and she put her fingers in his hair.  When he bit the other nipple he felt an undeniable downward push from her hands and resisted it, instead kissing her stomach again.  Her breathing was more rapid now, and he noticed her fingers curling in his hair.

“Chop…”  Her voice was lusty… “Chop…” She hesitated, “go down.”  She breathed. 

_Fucking hell._

Chop’s body was aching to fuck her.  But he fought that instinct.  She’d never asked him to go down before. 

Never.

He let his mouth slowly work its way down her stomach and she groaned loudly as his tongue tangle with her pubic hair.  But he diverted, and kissed her inner thighs again.  He felt her fingers tighten in his hair.

“Please?”  She asked as he licked her thighs slowly.  “Please Chop?” 

“I’m getting there.”  He teased.  And she groaned, her hands puling at his hair.  She opened her legs further and tilted her pelvis up even more and Chop chuckled to himself.

_Have fun, experiment._

He let his tongue run along her labia, but didn’t touch her clitoris.  He felt her shivering with desire and knew it was going to happen this time. 

He took a moment to look at her vagina, to really take it in, and gently let a finger slide inside of her.  She groaned deeply as he slid his finger around inside of her, trying to find her sweet spot.  His tongue poked out from his lips, and he bit it firmly as he concentrated, paying acute attention to her every move and sound.  And then she suddenly gasped and he knew he had it.  He move his finger in a circular motion on the area and she whimpered and moaned her stomach tensing, her back arching slightly.  He licked his lips and slowly lowered his mouth to her pussy his tongue wanting to eagerly, quickly lick, but he made himself slow down as he licked her clitoris with his full tongue.  He heard her groan loudly; the loudest he’d ever heard and felt her vagina clench around his finger.  It was like he had figured out the magic trick that he’d been missing until now.  It all made sense; he could see exactly what to do as her body tensed and her moaning grew, he slowly increased his speed.  This, by far, was the longest he’d spent down here, and his tongue was getting tired, but he felt like he could spend all night down there listening to the moans he was getting from her.  And then suddenly her groans took on a deeper, throaty urgency, and Chop felt his innards soar as he sped up some more.  Her vagina clenched around his finger almost violently and her legs started to shake while she groaned loudly, gasping in surprise and pleasure.  Chop let himself lap at her eagerly and her groans just got louder, her legs closing around his head.

“Oh my fucking god!”  She almost screamed, her back arching and her fingers pulling at his hair painfully.  Chop laughed and kept licking for all he was worth, his cock aching for her. 

He felt her start to push him away from her sensitive clitoris and he crawled up her body kissing her lips she laced her arms around him as he penetrated her, she gasped and wrapped her legs around him, groaning loudly again as she kissed him eagerly.  He had to slow his thrusts down he knew that, but it was so hard.  She was so warm and the sounds she was making…

But somehow Chop forced himself to slow down and focused on her mouth, and the way her body was moving.

“Deeper.”  She breathed and he happily obliged her demands and was rewarded by a guttural groan from her.  “Tip your pelvis up.”  She whispered and he tipped his pelvis into her more and her groan became more urgent.  He liked Izzy telling him what to do to please her.  He felt her whole body clench around him, her legs, her arms, her cunt as she came again, tears starting to fall down her cheeks, her mouth open, small gasps of pleasure slowly growing into deep groans of pleasure.  There was nothing he could do, he was going to cum, she was just too sexy when she came, clinging onto him like that, he sped up, keeping his pelvis tilted the way she liked, making her groan and hold onto him as she rode out the end of her orgasm.  He came loudly, deep inside of her.

“I love you.”  She whispered through tears and gasps of pleasure. 

“Oh Izzy,” He kissed her lips, “I love you too girl.” 

 

 

***

 

 

Rae enjoyed the warm air whipping her hair around her face. 

_I think I’ll always like heat waves if I can come to the beach._

It was midday, and everyone was sleeping except for her and Finn, who had snuck out for a jog.  They had stayed up talking until dawn.  And they had heard Izzy and Chop have sex three times; Izzy coming loudly each time.  The first time three of the four people hearing it had been too happy to hear those moans for any comments to be said, Archie’s quip quickly silenced.  But, when about 30 minutes later it had started up again, all bets were off and they laughed and joked about it.  When the third time came around, they were all too philosophical and stoned to really pay much attention and instead talked about the nature of colours in the dawn sky.  They had smoked more cones, drunk more alcohol and watched the sun rise through the caravan windows while it shook slightly as Chop and Izzy fucked again.  When Rae and Finn had collapsed into bed, they had both wanted to have sex, but had fallen asleep kissing.  Now she watched him running up the beach, his naked chest glistening in the sunlight.  He hadn’t seen her, wearing her giant shirt and watching him run along the shoreline.  He had obviously run out to the neighbouring beach and was on his way back.  A girl in a bikini standing ankle deep in the water stopped him and Rae could see from the way she held herself that she was interested in him.  He said a few words and then shook his head.  She watched the girl back up a little as Finn said a few more words and then shrug.  He picked his jogging back up and continued on.  She walked slowly out onto the beach, planning on meeting him on the shoreline. He was still far enough away to have not seen her as he kept his face forward.  But she watched him, a smile on her face.  When he finally saw her he altered his path, a huge grin on his face.

“What you doing here girl?”  His hands went to her hips.  He saw that she was wearing no bra and stared shamelessly at her breasts. 

“Can’t sleep without you in the bed.”  She shrugged.  He leaned in and kissed her, his body covered in sweat and his breath still short from the jog.  When he stopped kissing her and stared at her face Rae was struck, again, with how much she loved him. 

“Good job with Chop.”  She said as he took her hand and walked towards the water. 

“He’s the one who did t.”  Finn shrugged.

“What did you tell him?’  Rae asked as she looked up the beach at the bikini clad girl.  She was watching them and Rae found that she didn’t care. 

“Told him what I’ve learned from you.”  Finn answered honestly, “from desperately wanting for you to like it and enjoy it and… want me.”  He shrugged self-consciously.  She gave him a crooked smile.  How could this god-like man standing before her in nothing but board shorts have worried that she wouldn’t want him? 

“I love you.”  She said without even realising she’d spoken; the words had simply needed to be said.  Every time those words left her mouth Finn felt his insides do strange thing; soar, tingle, catch on fire, clench, melt… everything.  He turned to her, taking her face in his hands.

“You are the love of my life Rae.  And all the love I possess is yours.”  He stroked her hair, “everything I am is yours.  I’m yours.  You can do whatever you want with me.”  He kissed her lips slowly.

“I think I’d like to frolic in the water with you.”

“I were gonna try to do some laps.”  He laughed.  “Frolicking sounds much better.”  She led him into the water their eyes never parting.

The enormity of the ocean, the gentle swell of the waves, the fact that people were walking on the shoreline… it all added to the deepness of their kisses as they moved around each other in the water.  He stroked her face, a serious look on his face as they floated in the deep water, drinking each other in. 

“I love you Rae.  Rachel.’  He said seriously.  “It’s sometimes terrifying how much I love you, cos I’ll never be able to come back from this.  So if something happens… or something goes wrong.  I’ll never be alright without you.”  She was struck by how vulnerable he looked; it was the same vulnerability at the core of her, at the core of her love for him.  But she smiled and stroked his face.

“Nothing’s gonna happen.”  She whispered reassuringly, “Nothing’s gonna go wrong.”  He wrapped her legs around his waist slowly, pulling her close to him and kissed her with his mouth wide open, drawing in as much of her as he could.  She loved it when he kissed her this deeply, it felt like he could devour her, like he could taste all of her – the good and the bad, and still keep drinking her.  When he stopped kissing her, she could feel his cock pressing against his board shorts and she groaned and shook her head.

“What?”  He asked shyly.  “How am I supposed to not get hard when you kiss me like that?”

“It’s just…”  She lowered her eyes, “I’m still not used to being wanted.”  She raised her eyes to his.

“How could I not want you?”  He kissed her in that deep penetrating way and she reached down to free him from his shorts, making him groan with desire and anticipation.  His hands travelled up her thighs to her hips and he grinned when he felt that she wasn’t wearing underwear of any kind.  He slid into her, the gentle waves rocking them as she clung to him and he grasped her arse passionately, his feet finding the ocean floor, making it easier for him to thrust into her.  She leaned her head back, her hair dipping into the water, one of his hands travelled up under her shirt to her bare breasts.  Rae saw the shoreline; there were people on the beach, a guy walking his dog, the bikini clad babe, a couple jogging.  No children, no crowds; they were probably at Skegness water park.  Most of the younger crowd would show up to the beach in the afternoon after the big party last night. 

The thrill of how public this was filled Rae with delicious fear and she groaned loudly as her body rushed towards orgasm, coming fast, even for her.  Finn was happily bewildered by her early but powerful orgasm.  He looked at her head rolled back, her hair spread in the water and saw that she had noticed the people and understood.

“You like a bit o’ danger.”  He marvelled.  She sat back up, putting her arms around his neck.

“Aye.”  She whispered to him, “Is that ok?”

“More than ok.”  He grasped her arse harder and thrust into her as hard as the water would let him, eliciting delighted gasps from her.  “You’re gonna come again Rae Nelson.”  He said authoritatively, “and you’re not gonna be quiet about it.”  She whimpered at his command but nodded her intent to comply.  His kissed her deeply, slowly walking her to slightly shallower water, so that anyone looking would have a good inkling of what was happening.  Her shirt clung appealingly to her round breasts and he once again felt himself needing to touch them.  But only the right breast; she still flinched when he touched her left breast, and he respected her need to not be touched there. 

“Look at the people on the shore.”  He ordered her as he got into a better rhythm, one hand on her arse, the other on her breast.  “Do you think any o’ them will notice?”

“I dunno.”  She whimpered breathlessly as she felt his hand creep down to her clitoris.  Her eyes returned to his face.

“Watch them.”  He ordered as soon as she turned her face away a huge smile crept over his face.  The joggers where coming closer.

“Finn, get into deeper water.”  She gasped.

“After you cum.”  He answered and she whimpered as the joggers approached, fire spreading through her insides.  If she came loudly, they’d probably hear.  And with that her body clenched into a ferocious orgasm.  She moaned loudly and Finn chuckled happily as her head rolled forward onto his chest, her whole body shaking.  Finn’s eyes scanned the shoreline, he wasn’t sure if they’d heard, but they weren’t looking either way.  He moved them back into deeper water.  Rae kissed him deeply, her attraction to danger currently satisfied, her focus on him and making love to him.  She thrust herself onto him, enveloping him, making love to him, his arms wrapped around her and they kissed passionately.  He let himself drown in her, let himself be lost in her smell and taste, in the feel of her.  He let a moment of their lovemaking be all about him and the sensations of his body.  He felt his body tingling with excitement; he could feel every single place that she touched him and he felt breathless at the thought of being inside of her.  He remembered all the longing and aching he’d done for her, and he just couldn’t believe that she was making love to him in the ocean. 

“I love you Rae.”  He murmured and she whispered the words back to him, making his heart skip a beat.  Whenever he thought about it, he couldn’t believe this was true, couldn’t believe his luck.  He let the feeling seep through his innards, let the feeling of her enveloping his cock take over his mind and felt his orgasm building painfully good.  He groaned loudly his eyes closed, focussed on the feelings in his body.  It felt like a river of silver was spreading outward from his groin, up his stomach and down his legs.  He felt the familiar tense ache in his balls building, always as if for the first time.  Every time she thrust her hips and his cock slid into her it felt like it was meant to be, like a magnetic force existed between them bringing them irresistibly together.  He groaned again and opened his eyes to look at her beautiful face, his pleasure intensifying when he looked at her; his groans now coming in time with his breaths as he focussed on the feelings in his cock, the magnetism tingling through his being suddenly stopped and found its focus and tipped into something far beyond pleasure and all he could do was enjoy the feeling of his cum spurting from him in strong pulsating throbs; uncontrollable spasms spreading from his groin through his body, his moans loudly punctuating his pleasure.  Rae grinned, knowing that she had done that to him.  He collapsed, exhausted after his orgasm and they both sunk under the water.  They resurfaced laughing, and he embraced her again. 

“Rae.’  His voice was low, urgent, he was still panting, “it feels… sacred with you.” 

“With us.”  She agreed. 

 

 

 

 

_‘Karma Police’ by Radiohead_

 

They walked hand in hand back to the caravan, dripping saltwater the whole way. 

“You know.”  He was speaking happily, “I always imagined that you and me would do a radio show.”  He grinned, “That only played good music.  No shit, and like, no ads.”  He considered this, “or not too many ads.”

“Just the 90s?” She felt out this plan of his.

“No.  Best songs of all time.”  He answered thoughtfully.

“Style, genres?”

“If a song’s good, it don’t matter what genre it’s from.”  He answered, “Same if it’s crap.”  He shrugged, “No one genre is all bad.”

“Except country.”

“Johnny Cash.”  Finn answered.

“He was more rock and roll.”  Rae answered with a pained expression.  Finn grave her a lopsided grin.

“He’s known as a country musician.”  Finn countered with a small shrug. 

“Fuck what he’s known as.”  Rae answered snappily, making Finn’s grin broaden, “What’s he actually?  Rock and roll, that’s what.”

Hey entered the caravan, Archie was frying up some eggs, Izzy sat sleepily at the table, a small wistful smile on her face, Chop was lying with his head on her lap, his eyes closed, grinning.  Chloe sat reading a magazine, a pile of buttered bread in front of her; her job obviously done. 

“ ‘Morning all!”  Finn said cheerily as he sank into a seat, feeling deeply exhausted.  Rae sank down beside him and he put his arm around her shoulders.  Chop opened his eyes and looked over at Finn, they exchanged a silent nod of satisfaction; the only acknowledgment their previous conversation would be getting today, and possibly ever. 

“You sound far too happy.”  Archie complained, “I feel like an incubus has taken a crap in my heart.”

“You don’t do well after drugs do you Arch?”  Chloe asked with a straight face.

“Apparently no.”  He turned with a pan full of fried eggs, “but I don’t intend to stop any time soon.”  He slid the eggs from the pan onto a plate and Chop sat up, putting one on a piece of bread for Izzy, who shook her head.

“Not hungry.”  She said with a grin.

“And you’re too fucking happy too!”  Archie told Izzy, who yawned and shrugged in response.  Chop made a sandwich and ate it while Finn put together a sandwich for Rae. 

“You’re just jealous cos you don’t scream like that.”  Chloe grinned at Izzy’s blush.

“Yeah you neither.”  He answered snippily.  And they laughed, “But out of the two if us…”  Archie said, “One of us has a boy-”

“Alright!  Alright!”  Chloe laughed.

“How much did you guy’s hear?”  Izzy’s face was scarlet. 

“Who gives a fuck?”  Chop said happily around his food, “everyone knows that everyone’s fucking.”  He shrugged and Izzy smiled lovingly at him, Rae and Chloe exchanging a grin.  Izzy saw the grin and shared it, biting her bottom lip excitedly.  The three girls had a silent conversation, agreeing they’d need to get together to discuss what had happened last night.  Finn and Izzy both yawned simultaneously and Rae looked concerned at Finn.

“You been pushing yourself a lot the last couple o’ days.”  She commented as Chop rubbed Izzy’s inner thigh. 

“Aye.’  Finn yawned again.

“Don’t forget you’re having to heal like half of your liver and all that scar tissue, Dr Kraus said it’ll take months.”

“I know, I’m just sick of being exhausted all the time.”  He complained.

“I know.”  She sympathised, “but I think we should just lie about for today, let you rest?”

“Lie about in bed?”  He grinned.

“Aye and I’ll read Yeats poetry to you.” 

“I think he were suggesting that rest of us might want to not be in the caravan Rae.”  Chloe laughed.

“I know what he were suggesting, and I’m just telling him that he’s gonna be resting.”  She smiled firmly at Finn and he gave a small groan and nodded his compliance. 

“Shower baby girl?”  Chop asked and Izzy slowly got up nodding, yawning and stretching all at the same time.  He swept her up off her feet and she squealed in surprise, laughing as he carted her off to the shower. 

“So us four will either go to the beach or watch movies?”  Archie asked Chloe.

“It’s nice at the beach.”  Rae said, “We’ve already had a bit of a swim.”  Finn gave her a teasing grin and she flushed slightly. 

They sat and ate, planning the next 2 days and laughing at things Chloe read out from her magazine. 

Chop reappeared at the door.

“Izzy’s got a temperature, I’m taking her home.”  He declared suddenly, “I’m sorry guys.”

“No we understand.”  Chloe jumped up, “We’ll help you pack.”

“Should we come with you?” Archie asked.

“I don’t wanna ruin your time here.”  Chop said but Izzy appeared behind him in a towel.

“It’s only only slightly elevated.”  She complained, the thermometer in her hand. 

“Dr Sharma made it very clear to me that any change in your temperature were to be treated as a life or death situation Izzy.”

“But I wanna go back to the beach.”  She pleaded.

“Girl there’s not much I wouldn’t do for you.  But ignoring your oncologist is one of them.” 

“We’ll come.”  Finn said as he got up and started packing up the kitchen.

“This is bullshite.”  Izzy complained.

“Izzy, Chop’s right.”  Rae answered. 

They quickly and efficiently packed up the caravan, no one thinking twice about it.  Except for poor Izzy, who refused to help and sulked on the longue. 

They got into the cars, all agreeing to meet up at the hospital and started out on the 90 minute drive home.

By the time Chop got Izzy to the hospital, her fever was raging and she was coughing up rust coloured phlegm.  

 

 

 

 

_‘Up Jumped The Devil’ by Nick cave and the Bad Seeds_

 

Liam opened the door to an empty, stale smelling house.

“So she’s fucked off again.”  He sighed to the empty house.  His mother had a habit of taking off for days at a time with whoever was providing whatever she was addicted to at that time.  Sometimes it was drugs, sometimes alcohol, sometimes it was good old sex.  But it was always something. 

When she was sober and clean, she was as good a mum as any other he supposed.  But sometimes the devil got in her and she’d disappear for a week.  Or two. 

He went to the cupboard and got a bottle of vodka out.  He lit a cigarette and sucked heavily on it before opening the vodka and taking a good long drink.  He felt the booze warm his belly and ignored the burning in his throat as he took another long swig.  He swayed slightly, more from exhaustion than drunkenness.  During his short stay locked up he’d done nothing but think. 

_No sleeping for the evil._

_I fucked up Rae.  Cos I wanted to break her cos she were so strong and perfect._

_And I want to break Chlo cos she so beautiful and vulnerable, so I wanted to see how low I could make her go._

_What’s wrong with me?_

_Sometimes it’s like there’s something else inside o’ me that makes me do these things._

_To them._

_To me._

An image of an absurdly pretty woman kissing him came to his mind; 14 years old and his mother’s girlfriend had fucked him.  What a way to lose your v-plates. 

And then it was his mother yelling at him.  Hitting him; the only time she ever did.  Telling him it was his fault. 

He sucked on the cigarette and held it in his lungs as he swallowed as much vodka as he could in one go.  He was feeling a buzz now. 

_There’s something inside of me that is broken beyond repair._

_That’s why I can’t change._

_I’m a fuck up._

_Always fucking will be._

He stumbled to his mother’s room, looking for some drugs to take.  He found her stash in the top of her wardrobe and pulled out a few bottles of nothing interesting until he found something that peaked his interest. 

“Oxycodone.”  He rattled the bottle, “Nice.”  He paused, knowing that he was getting drunk and taking these with alcohol was a bad idea, even though the beginnings of the drunken haze he had.  He shrugged.

_If I die…_

_…well that’ll be interesting won’t it?_

He fumbled with the child proof lid and got frustrated.  He took the plastic bottle through to the kitchen, smoking and drinking on the way.  He grabbed the bread knife and hacked into the bottle, cutting his fingers mercilessly as the blade broke through the bottle into the hand that was holding it.

He laughed at the sight of his own blood.  And took two of the tablets out of the sawn open bottle, he swallowed them down with vodka and then took the bottle of pills, the vodka and his smokes into the longue room.  He fumbled with the radio until he heard a good song, and then he fumbled with the television until he found cartoons, he turned the volume down and danced to the music, his eyes on the tv, a nice buzz spreading through his body.  He felt his heartbeat slowing down and he swayed, his mind scrambling like eggs.

_Chlo.  Her face like a fire._

_Rae.  Her mind like a star._

_Fiery star._

_Starry fire._

_Star fire star fire…._

His mind turned around in circles on itself.  He rubbed his face.  Or rather, he tried to, but his hand hit the side of his head and he laughed, his heart beat slowing down further as a strange euphoria spread through his whole being.  He took another pill biting it between his teeth and tasting the bitterness with a sneer.  He took another deep swig of vodka and lit another cigarette, burning his already bleeding hand, but not feeling the pain. 

The world became so narrowed, the corner of his eyes blurring into nothingness as he stood swaying to the music and smoking his cigarette down to nothingness.  He took another pill with the rest of the vodka, having polished off the whole bottle.  He collapsed onto the longue unwillingly; he simply couldn’t stand anymore.  He sat staring at the cartoons, his fingers bleeding onto the longue.  His field of vision narrowed, his breathing slowed, the buzz continued unabated in amongst all the jumbled thoughts in his brain.

His head hit the ground as he fell sideways off the longue, consciousness slipping away from him.

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Four Seasons in One Day’ by Crowded House _

 

“We got somewhere to be.”  Gary said softly to Finn.  Finn looked up at him.

“I’m not leaving Rae.”  He answered.

“Janice has volunteered for some girl time.  We’ve got something important to do.” 

“Course I volunteered for girl time!”  Janice grinned at Rae, “I was thinking blue nails this time?”  Rae nodded.

“And maybe we can organise that doctor’s appointment now?”  Rae asked and Janice nodded.

“If you want to?”

“I need to.” 

It had been a tense few days.  Izzy had been diagnosed with pneumonia upon returning to hospital and her devastated immune system was struggling to battle the disease.  They only got half an hour to visit her each day, and they never missed it.  But it was heartbreaking to watch her waste away, her pale, sometimes lifeless body would lie limply in bed while Izzy’s eyes would follow them around the room, her mouth trying to smile when they came.  Sometimes she would move, and talk, and cough, of course.  These were the better days.  These days Chop would guide her for a walk through the ward.  Chop never left her side, he slept in the chair in her room.  Joe had given him all the leave he needed; he was going nowhere.  And the rest of the gang just waited, going crazy wondering what was happening. 

“You’ll be alright?”  He asked her and Rae nodded.  “Alright then.”  He agreed to go with his father.  Rae leaned over to kiss him. “I love you girl.”  He stroked her face. 

“I love you.”  They kissed again.

“Come on!”  Gary rolled his eyes and headed for the door.  But Finn took his time taking in her face. Every time they parted he took his time to take her face in, as if it would be the last time he saw it.  He kissed her again and then left.

Gary had the car idling outside when Finn left the house, putting his leather jacket on; the heat wave was well and truly over. 

He looked at his father’s grim face as they pulled out of the driveway.  They drove in silence for some time until Gary looked at him momentarily and then started to speak in a low voice. 

“So I wanted to talk to you about something important.  A couple of things actually.”  Gary said and Finn waited in silence.  “I notice that you and Rae are… closer than ever.”  Gary continued.

“Aye.”  Finn replied with a defensive tone, not needing another lecture about this stuff from his dad. 

“I can see that you love her very much, and she treasures and loves you as much as you deserve.”  Finn turned his eyes to his father, the unexpectedness of his words made Finn’s mind worry about what was coming.  “I knew that your mother was the one, and the whole world was against us, you know.”  He said with a reminiscent smile.  “I don’t want that to be our relationship.”  Gary turned into a familiar road and Finn felt a pang of guilt; it had been too long since he had visited his Gran’s grave.  “But it takes more than love to make a relationship work.  So learn from my mistakes son.  Don’t be silent like me.  Don’t ruin things because you’re scared that what you do won’t be the right thing.”  He pulled the car up in an unfamiliar part of the cemetery.  “Learn to speak up.  Always speak up.”  Gary said as he turned to him. 

“I am learning that da.”  Finn smiled calmly, reassuringly. 

“Then tell her what your Nan’s necklace means.”  Finn looked down.

“We’ve said all sorts of things to each other.”  Finn said softly, “but that necklace is different… I know that… what if it’s too much for her?”  Finn worried.

“What did I just say?’  Gary asked, “Don’t be forced into inaction because you’re worried about whether what you want to do is the right thing or not.  Be a man.  Be a complete man with flaws.  And if Rae is half the woman I think she is, she will love your flaws as well.  Let yourself make mistakes.  And if this is too much too soon for her, you’ll figure out a way through it.  And if it’s not too much too soon, then you be a real man and you keep to your word, and your promise to her for the rest of your life.”  Finn fidgeted with his fingers and slowly nodded his head.

“Aye.”  He said softly, thinking on what his father had said.

“And if you don’t mean what that necklace implies and you’ve just been making grand gestures that are ultimately hollow, and saying empty words of love to her, then you really don’t deserve her.  And you’re not the young man I thought you were.”

“I love Rae with all of my being da.”  Finn said firmly. 

“Good.”  Gary answered, “Cos I like her.”  Finn shook his head but smiled wanly.

They sat in silence for a while.  Finn thinking about what his father had said.

“The other thing I wanted to talk about is Grace and your mother.”  Gary broke the silence after a while.  He got out of the car and Finn followed him as he walked into the cemetery, stopping at a grave with fresh flowers.  Finn’s breath caught as he looked down at the headstone. 

It was Grace’s grave.

“I come here every couple of days.”  Gary said as he brushed the top of the grave off, cleaning everything methodically and carefully.  “But I didn’t put these flowers here.”  Finn’s mind scrambled to think who else would be putting flowers on Grace’s grave.

“Mum?”

“I don’t know.”  Gary said as he finished up and touched the earth above where his daughter laid.  “But I can’t think of anyone else.”  Finn crouched down beside him and touched the grassy earth of Grace’s grave.  “I’ve never tried to find out.”  Gary said.  “I’ve waited seven years for your mother to come back to me.”  Gary stood up and looked down on the grave, “I respected her need to have time away.  I believed her when she wrote in that letter that she would come back if she ever got well.”  He watched as Finn traced over the words on Grace’s grave.  “But I’m starting to think… You know, there were so many things on that letter that were wrong… why should I believe that she will come back?”  Finn stood up and looked at his father.

“Da, I know you said that you keep your word to her for the rest of your life… but I think that… in this case….” Finn didn’t want to tell his father to just move on; he understood the loyalty.  But he did want his father to be happy; not lonely.

“What I mean is… that I think… if you don’t mind.”  Gary looked intently at him, “I think we should try to find your mother.” 

Finn’s train of thought stopped dead.  For some reason he had never considered this to be an option.  What would he even say to her?  Finn felt tears threatening and he looked away from his father.

“Don’t answer now.  Have a bit of a think, and get back to me.  Ok?”

“Yeah alright.”  Finn’s mouth felt numb, “I’ll have a think.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Into My Arms’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds _

 

The tears only stopped when she was conscious.  When she lay unconscious like this there were always tears.  Sometimes she had pipes down her throat; to force feed her.  Sometimes oxygen masks or piping under her nose.  There were sometimes drips and machines making beeping noises.  Right now she just had oxygen under her nose and a drip.  When she was last awake she had complained bitterly and starting crying about all the crap sticking out of her and Dr Sharma had agreed to take some away if she agreed to calm down.  Chop took her cold hand and cried.  She was always cold now.  He rubbed her fingers between his hands and tried not to see how pale she was.  Eventually he put his head down onto the bed and wept. 

“Chop?”

“Izzy?”  He shot his head up and looked at her, gently stroking her cheek. 

“Chop.”  She said weakly, but urgently, “Chop listen to me.”  She reached up and touched his face, wet with tears, “Arnold.”  She whispered lovingly, “You should leave.  I might not survive this.”  She kept her eyes on his, her honesty heartbreaking, “You should go.”

“No.”  He answered simply, and when she slowly opened her mouth to protest he shook his head, “It don’t matter what you say.  I’m staying.” 

“But if I were well it would be ok that you were staying with me.  But I’m sick and-”

“And it don’t matter if you’re well or sick, Izzy.  I’m always yours; I will always be here for you.  No matter what.”  He paused for emphasis.

“Chop…” Her breath rattled slightly, terrifying Chop.  But he took a steadying breath and continued.

“And you’re gonna live through this and I’m gonna help you beat it.”

“But if I die...”  She answered sadly.

“If you…” But Chop couldn’t say the word.  “If you…”  He lowered his eyes, his voice dropping to a barely audible breath, “die…”  Just saying that word made him feel defeated.  He fought that feeling; “Izzy.  If you die.  Then I will fucking be at your side to kiss you goodbye.”  She sniffed, tears gently crawling down her cheeks as Chop tried not to sob, tears still leaking from his eyes. 

“I love you Arnold.”  She said softly and motioned for him to come closer.

“I love you Isabella.”  He leaned in closer and she kissed him.  He stroked her face as he kissed her.  He savoured it, wanting to remember every little thing.  This felt like his last kiss.  It felt like a goodbye.

“I wish I could see the sun rising from here.”  She said wistfully as she looked at the window of her room on the other side of the room.  Chop looked at the drip.  The IV was on a poll that could be wheeled around.  The oxygen could be wheeled too. 

“Alright.”  He said to her and gently scooped her out of her bed, her blankets still wrapped around her.  Izzy reached out and dragged the drip, while Chop gently scooted the oxygen along with his feet.  He stood in front of the window and Izzy turned her face to the rising sun.  He stood in silence, watching the side of her face, memorising everything about he as she stared out at the sunrise. 

“I’m glad that you’re staying.”  She said guiltily.  “It might be harder for you.  But better for me.”  She admitted, still staring at the sunset, “I want you to be the last thing I ever look at Chop.”  She said resolutely.  “If I have to die, I want you to be the last thing I see.”  She turned her eyes to him.

“Alright.”  He could barely speak, his throat closed up with emotion.  “But you have to promise to fight with everything you got Izzy to stay with me.”

“I do promise that Chop.”  She turned her eyes back to the sunrise.  It wasn’t the most beautiful sight, the sun rising over the hospital car park.  But it was perfect for Izzy, who just wanted to see the sun, to feel it on her skin again.  Only a few days ago she had been at the beach and Chop had given her her first orgasms.  Now she felt weak, her lungs heavy and unwilling to breathe, her whole body ravaged by disease. 

And Chop felt her head collapse against his chest.  He sat in the chair near the window, her body curled up in his arms, and cried bitterly.  But she did not stir. 

 

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8 - The Show Must Go On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the final part of an 8 part season 3 fanfic.
> 
>  
> 
> If you can, read with the suggested music.
> 
> i hope you have all enjoyed reading my season 3.  
> there is a season 4 too.
> 
> you can contact me on tumblr (fanningon.tumblr.com) or twitter (www.twitter.com/Emma_fanningon)
> 
> cheers m'dears xo

_ ‘Exit Music (For a Film) by Radiohead _

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMqXj-eVCjI&feature=kp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMqXj-eVCjI&feature=kp)

 

He tightened his arms around her; holding her to him as his body shook with the fear of losing her.  She did not stir and he did not try to rouse her. 

Chop had had a lot of sad things happen to him.  Mr Ears, his bunny dying when he was seven.  His older brother always stealing his favourite toys, his father’s gambling.  But he hadn’t really cried for any of them; he had far too much male machismo surrounding him in his family to ever let himself cry. 

He wept.  He had been weeping almost continuously for days.  He didn’t know how to stop it, or even if he could.  He hadn’t known that he was even capable of such an outpouring of emotion. 

But it was his Izzy.

_My Isabella._

_My life._

_I didn’t even know I could love like this._

_I can’t breathe without you baby girl._

He stroked her face as she laid still in his arms.

Rae and Finn came into the room for their daily visit; they had the early morning and Archie and Chloe had the afternoon visit.  Finn’s eyes were on Rae’s face as she spoke.  But she stopped mid-sentence.  Finn’s eyes traveled from Rae’s face to where she was looking in shocked silence.

Chop held a still and silent Izzy to his chest, crying and rocking back and forth. 

He saw them and just kept crying.  Finn’s fingers squeezed around Rae’s hand. 

Rae felt the tears prick in her eyes and turned to press the ‘call nurse’ button, but Chop stopped her.

“She’s just sleeping.”  He croaked through his tears.  Rae felt the tension leave her body as she took her hand away from the button and turned back to Chop and Izzy. 

“Fucking hell.”  Finn breathed out in relief and leaned against the wall.  “She look-” but he stopped himself. 

“I know.”  Chop gasped through his tears.  “I know.”  He kissed her forehead, “I thought she were for a minute too.” 

“We should get her back into bed.”  Rae said gently but Chop shook his head.

“This is the only way I get to hold her now.” 

“Yeah but she needs to be in her bed and to rest Chop.”  Rae countered, “C’mon.”  She motioned for him to get up.  Chop looked down at Izzy and then back up at Rae and slowly nodded his head.  He stood up and carried her to the bed, gently laying her down while Rae sorted out the pillows. 

Finn stayed in the door, his heart still thudding.  He’d had enough of death and misery; everything just reminded him of his fear of Rae dying now.  His eyes followed her as she set up the bed and blankets for Izzy.  Chop collapsed into the chair by her side and took her hand, his eyes fixed on her face. 

Rae decided to press the ‘call nurse’ button anyway; she couldn’t shake the sense of dread in her stomach and she wanted them to check Izzy out. 

Finn came into the room and sat on the chair by the window silently and watched Rae as she started to talk to Izzy softly. 

She didn’t wake up as Rae spoke about everything that was happening at school.  Nor when the nurses came in and took a look, deciding to call a doctor to see about getting another chest x-ray.  She didn’t wake up when Rae and Finn had to leave.  She still hadn’t woken up when Archie and Chloe came for their visit after school. 

Izzy slept, completely unresponsive to the world.  And Chop cried, his hand always holding hers. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Soma’ by Smashing Pumpkins _

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RumHTFUV7bA>

 

Finn looked at his hands on the steering wheel.  He had missed driving.  First it was the drugs he had to take for his injury, then it was Rae not wanting to give up the steering wheel.  But today he needed the car to go to the hospital for his liver function tests and he didn’t want to take the bike, and she had a date.  With Phillip. 

Just before the Easter holiday Elsa had asked the performing arts class if any of them fancied entering a one act play competition being held in London.  The general consensus was that everyone wanted to pick up the extra work.  It was decided that Phillip and Rae would write this script over the Easter break and they’d start rehearsals when school resumed.  Finn had been less than happy, not just because it was Phillip, but because the thought of Saul was always in the back of his mind.  But she had to do her homework, so she had to do this. 

Today was their first writing date; she’d had to cancel one already, so they’d probably spend all day today writing. 

They were parked outside of his house.  A large four bedroom house with a manicured garden that Finn eyed scathingly. 

“So he’s rich as well.”  Finn muttered unimpressed.  “O’ course.”  Rae shrugged in response. 

“It’s never come up in conversation.”  Finn breathed out with an increasing sound of unimpressed annoyance.  Rae bit her bottom lip and waited for Finn to speak his mind.  He kept staring at his hands on the steering wheel, while Rae sat beside him looking at the front door, hoping Phillip wouldn’t come out. 

“Alright.”  He said after a long pause.  “Have a good day.”  He smiled stiffly and leaned in to kiss her.

“What’s wrong?”  She asked, not letting him kiss her.  He looked longingly at her lips and sighed.

“Nothing.”  He said grumpily. 

“Nothing.”  She mimicked him and he shot her a dirty look.

“I don’t like that I don’t get to spend the day with you.”

“You get some time with the lads.”  She reminded him and he nodded glumly.  “You like time with the lads.”

“Aye.”  He sighed again.

“So?”

“I still hate Bill.”  He said sulkily, expecting the usual rebuff and argument. 

“Fair enough.”  He looked up at her smiling face with a confused look on his face.  She shrugged, “You’re right, I haven’t been clear enough with him.  And if it comes up, I’ll make sure he knows his place.”  Finn looked down at his hands, not sure how to feel about what she had said.  He wanted her to raise the topic, not wait for Phillip, but at least she was acknowledging it now.  He turned his eyes back to her and smiled wanly.

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”  Rae put a hand to his face, “but you deserve better than to think that I would rather hurt you than him.  Or anyone really.”  She saw an unmistakeable look of relief on his face. 

“It was wrong of me to make you think I don’t trust you.”  He answered honestly.

“I know!”  She laughed and he grinned lopsidedly with her, taken by these moments of confidence she sometimes had.  “But,” she said slowly, as if reluctantly, “This one time.”  She said cheekily, “I may have been more wrong than you.”

“This one time?”  He laughed with disbelief.

“May have.”  She answered and kissed his chuckling mouth.  She stroked his cheek and looked into his eyes, “I want you to know that you don’t have to worry Finn.”  She said seriously, “Not just think it or suspect it.  I want you to know it in your bones.” 

“I do.”  He answered with lowered eyes.

“So we never had this problem with Phillip then?”  She pointed out.

“Things are different now.”  He shrugged.

“Aye but old worries have a way of coming back.”  Rae answered, wanting him to know that she understood that this was important.  He looked up at her mouth with a loving smile.

“I like how much you say aye now.”  He ran his fingers along her lips as her lips turned up into a smile.

“You’re rubbing off on me.”  She kissed him and held his face in her hands, “I love you Finlay McCay Nelson.”  He smiled with a strange look on his face.

“I love you.”  He mumbled shyly looking down.

“What?”

“I kinda like it when you use my full name.”  He shrugged self-consciously, “and I’ve kinda hated me middle name since me ma left.”  He sighed. 

“Her last name?”

“Scottish naming tradition.”  He smiled grimly.  “So yeah, it’s her maiden name.  Me dad wanted Iain, but mum insisted.” 

“I like it.  It’s much better than Iain… that’s kinda dorky.”  She kissed him and he laughed shyly and lowered his eyes. 

“She wanted to call me Fionnlaoch.”  He spelled it out for her so she could see the horror of that name.  “It’s Gaelic!” 

“Holy shit!”  She laughed.

“Aye!”  Finn nodded, “I’m so glad me da stuck his ground on that.  And he says she only gave in cos Finlay is Scottish anyway.  He said that she said it were bad enough I’d have Nelson as a last name.”  He shook his head, “Fionnlaoch.  Imagine it.”

“Sounds almost the same though.”  She shrugged. 

“I s’pose.”  He grinned, “Me ma was right adamant that I’d learn Gaelic and Scottish stuff.”  He eyes hazed over as he thought back to her, “She were quite patriotic.” 

“We should continue your education then.”  Rae suggested.

“You know…”  Finn said slowly, “Da says he wants to try and find her.”  Finn searched Rae’s face for any signs of what she thought.

“Do you want to?” 

“I think I do.”  He looked down at his ragged fingernails, “I think I’d like to learn about me heritage from her.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

“I have this stupid idea…” He spoke with equal measures fear and hope, “that we’ll find her right quick.  And she’ll see me… and everything’ll be alright.”  His vulnerability was heartbreaking and Rae held his hands firmly as he spoke, “She’ll love me.  And she’ll be alright.  And she’ll come home.”  He looked, pleading at Rae, as if she could make this happen and she smiled bracingly. 

“I hope that’s what happens.”  He nodded slowly in response.

“Me too.” 

“So you gonna tell your dad that you want to find her?”  Finn paused for just a moment.

“Aye.”  He said with an excitement that could not hide the undercurrent of fear in his voice.  He kissed her passionately, excited, terrified and aching for so many different things.  As he pulled away he saw the front curtains flick and grimaced. 

“What?’  Rae saw the sudden drop in his mood.

“We been spotted.”  He nodded towards the house and Rae sighed. 

“S’pose I gotta go in.”  She said grimly. 

“What time do you want me to pick you up?’  Finn asked, pretending that he wasn’t just as unimpressed by this plan as ever. 

“We’ll I’d like you to ravish me before dinner.”  She answered cheekily eliciting an immediate grin from Finn, “So time yourself around that.” 

“Alright.”  The anticipation was already in his voice, and it made Rae feel like the most desirable woman in the world.  He jumped out and went around to her side of the car to open the door.  Rae saw a shadow moving inside the house and knew that Phillip was waiting.  He kissed her at the front door; a deep, sexually charged, and long, lingering kiss. 

“See you this after.”  He whispered and she groaned lustfully in response.  “I love you Mrs Nelson.”  He jogged back to the car, running late for his appointment and Rae watched the car pull out, longing to go with him and make love all day after his test.  She sighed deeply and pressed the doorbell. 

“Hi Rae.”  He said with a grin as he opened the door and let her in.  It was the first time they’d been alone since Rae had spoken to Kester about him.  She’d hung with him at school, but someone else had always been there.  She was nervous about telling him to back off; she didn’t know how to even say that kind of thing.  Rae distracted herself by looking around the house, trying to stop her jaw from dropping.

“Quite posh.”  She said, trying to hide her awe.  Phillip shrugged.

“It’s home.”  He motioned for her to follow him and led her upstairs to his bedroom.  Rae looked around the huge room, almost twice the size of hers, with a huge ensuite attached.  There was a desk with two chairs already set up for their study at one end of the room.  She sat down at the desk and started to pull things out of her bag.

“Do you want something to eat?  Or drink?” 

“Just whatever you got.”  She shrugged.

“Ok.  Well you make yourself at home, and I’ll grab something from downstairs.”  He left the room and Rae looked around.  She saw his large windows, the venetian blinds open and shuddered.  She got up and closed them.  Rae looked at the posters on the wall, the slightly messy bedside table and the modest cd collection beside a large stereo system.  She turned and looked at his bookshelves; stuffed full with books.  She was flicking through his copy of Shakespeare’s complete works when he came back up with two mugs of tea in one hand and a plate of various snack foods in the other.  Rae looked closely at the food; a lot of it was things that she really liked.  She took the tea from him and took a sip; sweet, milky and really strong.  He knew how she took tea.  She knew they’d talked about things like this; he was always asking small random questions.  It was just the fact that he remembered it that told her that Phillip really did have a crush on her 

“Thanks.”  She said quietly as she sat down to start work.

“You wanna borrow the Shakespeare?”  He asked.

“Nah that’s ok.”  She shook her head.  They worked for a while on what kind of idea they wanted; Rae suggesting a modernised Macbeth and Phillip agreeing to go with it.

“You know Rae, it’s going around school that some guy tried to kill you and Finn…?  And that’s why you both had so much time off school.”  He watched Rae tighten the scarf around her neck and look down.  “Was it your stalker?”  His concern was obvious and Rae felt bad for him; she didn’t want him to worry.

“Yeah.”  She replied reluctantly, “Finn saved me life and nearly died for his trouble.”  She tried to smile but it felt dead on her lips. 

“Wow.  He saved your life…”  Phillip said softly, a strange light in his eyes.  He looked away for a moment, “You alright?”  He turned his face back to her, deeply concerned.

“I s’pose.”  

“Something traumatic like that… it leaves marks.”  He said softly.  “You can talk to me if you need to.”  He shrugged.  “I mean, obviously you don’t have to… I’m just saying…”  He took a deep breath, “I’m just saying that I care.  And if you need anything.”  He looked away, fidgeting with his pen, “I’d like to help.” 

“Thanks Phil.”  She said softly and looked back down at the outline they had created.

“Where’d it happen?”  He asked gently, “if you don’t mind saying.”  He added, clearly worried about her.

“Oh, he got me in me bedroom.”

“In your bed-” He swallowed hard.  “Did he…?”  He looked away, “not my business, I’m sorry.”  Rae knew he wanted to ask if he had raped her.  But she had no intention of answering anything specific about what had happened.  She’d already been grilled on this topic by so many people; she only told the details to the people she had to tell, or wanted to tell.  Phillip was neither of those.  

“I don’t imagine you like being in your bedroom anymore.”  He tried to partially change the topic.

“I mostly stay at Finn’s house at nights now.”  She admitted willingly. 

“He got a spare bedroom then?”  He asked hopefully. 

“No I stay in his room.”  Rae answered deliberately.  “In his bed.”  She saw in his eyes that he was still clinging on to the idea that Finn did not sleep in the bed with her, “With him.”  She added pointedly.  He turned his face way.

“So it’s pretty serious with him then?”  He muttered.  When he turned his face back to her, she saw that look in his eyes that she had been unable to read before.  She understood it now.  He didn’t want her to be staying with Finn.  He wanted her to still be a virgin.

“Very serious.”  Rae caught his eye and knew she had to keep hammering the nails in the coffin, “We have truly amazing sex.”  She said earnestly.

“Yeah he said.”  Phillip grinned grimly, “I thought he was just bragging.  You know?  Boy talk.”  He swallowed hard, clearly unhappy. 

“Finn’s not the kind of guy to brag about something that he hasn’t done.”  Rae said, “He don’t talk much, but when he does choose to, he does it honestly.  And when he brags, he’s usually under-telling the story, not over-telling it.”  Phillip nodded slowly, considering this.

“You haven’t been together for very long.”

“You think I’m a slut?”  She asked calmly.

“No!”  Phillip answered horrified.  “No, I just… you seem to care about him a lot for such a short lived relationship.”  He said hurriedly. 

“Right.”  She said tight lipped.

“I just… I know you think you love him.”  Phillip said, “But you’ve only been with him a short time, so…”  He paused, his mind scrambling over everything, “Maybe it’s trauma after the stalker stuff?”

“I am very much in love with Finn.”  She said firmly, “Stalker or no.”  A silence filled the room and Rae watched him in that silence. 

“Right.”  He answered thoughtfully.  She thought back to all the things Finn had said to her about Phillip and tried to think of a way forward in this discussion.  A way that didn’t hurt his pride too much. 

_Feign innocence_

The thought came from nowhere but she knew what she had to do.  She had to pretend that she still had no clue that he liked her. 

“I know that you and Finn chat.”  She said this as if she was implying that they were mates.  Phillip tried to hide the scoff and she looked away, trying not to join him in that scoff, “He tells me that you love someone?”  Silence greeted her words as he slowly nodded, his eyes on her face.

“I do.”  Rae felt her heart break for him.  She knew what it was like to crush on someone that you couldn’t have; it had been her whole life until Finn, and even while she’d been crushing on Finn, she never really thought she’d get him.  She felt a huge upsurge of sympathy for Phil and put her hand over his in a gesture of friendship.

“So you know what I mean when I say that the most important thing in the world to me is Finn’s happiness; because I love him, that’s all I care about.”  She smiled, “You understand that, cos you must want happiness for the person you love?”  Phillip looked down at her hand on his and nodded his head.  She withdrew her hand and turned back to her notes on the play, feeling like she had made everything very clear to him.  But he watched her from the corner of his eye; his mind working overtime. 

_It’s so nice to have sorted that out._

_Now I can go ahead and just be friends with Phillip.  Cos now he knows that I love Finn.  And he knows he should just let me be happy._

_Maybe I should tell him to move on?  Would that make it more clear?  How would I even raise that now?_

They started to flesh out their outline.

“How are we going to contemporise it?”  Phillip asked and sucked his pen in thought.

“Well, it’s gotta be a setting where there’s power struggles and murder…”

“We can make it like a drug gang or something?”  Rae thought about this for a while

“Alright… so the king is kinda the head drug maker?”  Rae started to make a chart of all the characters and their modern day roles.

“Yeah, and we’ll make Macbeth start as courier.  And MacDuff can be like his best pal at first.”

“Can’t be more than an hour.”  Rae warned.

“So what do we take out?”  He looked over their ideas and saw Rae’s pen hovering over Lady Macbeth, “We can’t take out Lady MacBeth; her trauma is so strong.”  Rae wiped her face as she considered how they could trim it down before they’d even started writing it. 

“Ok, well what do we want to say about this early friendship o’ theirs that you wanna put in?”

“Something about how even strong relationships can break down with the right kinda pressure.”

“That pressure being MacBeth’s ambition.”  Rae mused.  “Ok and what do we want to say about Lady MacBeth’s trauma?”

“That trauma can affect how we feel and the decisions we make.”

“Right…”  Rae thought, “They’re both good…”  She tried to figure out a way to think around their time restrictions, missing the look Phillip was giving her.  Had she seen it, she would have known that she was no closer to dealing with Phillip’s affections than she had been when she’d first entered his house. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Wish You Were Here’ by Pink Floyd _

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPL_SV3n7IU>

 

Rae had never really known her Nan.  She’d died when Rae was so young.  She looked down on the slightly neglected grave as her mum knelt and started to clear it up.  Rae had decided to come with her because she hadn’t spent a whole lot of time with her lately, and because it would be nice to get out of the house, even though Karim and Aiesha were still there.  It was the first time she’d been in the house without Finn for longer than an hour or so, and she wasn’t enjoying it.  But Gary was driving Finn up to London today to see Dr Kraus to go over his latest liver function tests; she hadn’t been able to make it to Stamford, and she was his doctor.  Rae had wanted to go, and Finn had wanted her to come.  But she knew that those Nelson men still had a lot of healing to do after their fight, and now that things were calmer, she wanted to give them time to talk.  Not that Nelson men were renowned for their talking. 

Finn had accepted Archie’s evaluation of the situation: Rae was safe as long as she wasn’t alone.  Saul was too much of a coward to take on a second person.  It meant that her life was tense, but that she had a wide selection of bodyguards to choose between.  It meant that Finn sometimes got time off from being stuck with her all day and night.  Not that he seemed to mind.  But she couldn’t help but think that it must get tiring for him.  At least this way he could still go to the gym and have time with the lads.  If they planned themselves carefully, they could almost have a normal life. 

Except Rae never got a moment alone.  This morning he’d left her bed to go to the boxing joint; if there was no one else in the house, he’d always drag her along with him, and she’d sit in the cafeteria yawning and reading.  But today Linda and Karim where in the house and he kissed her goodbye before heading off; he was heading straight home afterwards to go to London. 

She looked around the graveyard and saw small grass flowers blooming everywhere and butterflies flitting amongst them.  It was a beautiful spring early morning, the kind of day Rae might have taken a long walk alone on if not for the fear that still clung to her life.  It was so early still, that Finn wouldn’t even have left the boxing joint yet.  She watched the world slowly waking up around her, birds singing, insects whirring, trees turning their leaves to the sun.  Mornings like these made you feel like the whole world was doing just fine.  She felt the sun on her back, making her feel safe and warm and smiled contently as her mother fussed with the gravestone. 

Rae was suddenly struck with the overwhelming urge to be alone.  She needed to be away from people.  Even if just for a moment.  Not just because she never got to be alone, but because there was something that she urgently needed to do, something she had been neglecting.

“Mum…. Can I go for a walk?”

“Where to?’  She asked without looking up. 

“Just wanna visit Tixie.”  Rae said softly. 

“Will you be safe?”  Linda looked up.

“He’s hardly gonna grab me here mum.”

“He grabbed you in our home.”  Linda shuddered at the thought.

“Aye, this is too public.”  Linda considered this for a moment and nodded. 

“Well don’t go too far.”

“I won’t.” 

Rae felt her heart skip in fear and elation at finally being allowed to be alone with herself.  She raised her face to the sky, the sun warming her skin; she hadn’t gotten a lot of sun lately, and this felt almost decadent.  She dawdled on her way to Tixie’s grave, enjoying the spring air and getting her emotions under control.  She hadn’t visited Tix in far too long.  In fact, she’d only visited Tix once; to give her the letter.  She already felt the tears behind her eyes but refused to acknowledge them as she approached the headstone slowly. 

“Oh Tixie.”  She murmured as she sunk to her knees and put her hand on the grass above where she laid.  She read the gravestone slowly.  She looked at the fresh flowers and touched the petals of one of the creamy coloured roses. 

“I’m sorry it’s been so long since I visited.”  Rae’s voice choked up almost immediately, but she made herself continue.  “There’s just been so much happening.  I can’t even tell you how much.  You wouldn’t believe me Tixie.”  She wiped her face and tried to get herself under control, but it was no use, she started to cry.  “But you know…” He voice winced out of her closed up throat, “I think the main reason I haven’t come,” she took a shuddering breath, “is cos I blame myself Tix.”  She sobbed and touched the headstone, “I should have been there for you.”  She let herself cry for a long time.  “I miss you so much.”  She laid down beside Tix’s grave and kept talking.  “I miss going up to the hospital and getting your advice.”  Rae stroked the grass longingly, “I miss your smile.”  She wept, “And… your laugh.”  Rae let the feelings she had been repressing for so long finally start to bleed out of her eyes, her face screwed up in a deep grief.  She cried for a long time, lying with her knees tucked up to her chest, one hand extended to the grass above her dead friend’s body.  She had so many regrets, so much guilt and shame.  “It’s not fair Tix.”  She sniffed, “It’s not fair that this happened to you.”  She sobbed again, the pain inside of her seemingly never ending.

And then he was there, his hand on her face tenderly.

“What are you doing here?”  She asked confused.

“Shhh.”  He soothed as he laid down behind her and spooned her comfortingly.  Finn didn’t say another word as she wept.  He just held her silently.  Rae wept until she felt that her insides would physically pour out of her mouth, her whole body shaking with grief.  Grief for her lost friend, for another friend slowly slipping away in front of her eyes, for all that had happened these past few months, for her own life forever changed.  But mostly it was grief for Tix; a grief she hadn’t let herself even acknowledge until this day.  And still he held her.  He held her until she had exhausted herself and laid there silently, her face swollen and sore. 

He kissed her shoulder and slowly sat up, helping her sit up.  She looked around, fearful that people had seen her.  She was stiff from holding herself so rigid with grief.  He stroked her hair slowly. 

“What are you doing here?”  Her voice was small and lost and he scooted closer to her to give her his warmth and comfort. 

“They rescheduled me appointment to tomorrow.”  He said softly, “I tried calling your place but Karim said you was out with your mum… so I thought I’d come visit me Nan.”  He pointed to a gravestone 1 row back and 5 over.  “Haven’t come in a long time.”  He lowered his eyes guiltily, “I was gonna head over to yours after, but I heard your voice, so...”  He explained.  She nodded slowly. 

“I’m glad you was here.”  She sniffed miserably.

“Me too.”  He answered with a sad smile. 

“Mum must be worried.”  She sighed heavily.

“She already came by.  You didn’t see her, but I did, and she saw me.”  Finn said softly, “I think she decided it were best to leave us to it.”  Finn looked at the gravestone and back at Rae, “do you wanna tell me about her?”  Rae’s eyes, feeling tired and fragile, like her whole body, focussed on the gravestone.

“She was my friend.”  Rae answered simply.  “And she died because I forgot to go to dinner with her… I was at the rave instead.”  Finn lowered his eyes, not sure what to make of what she said.  “When I first went into hospital, she was the only girl who’d talk to me.”  Rae pulled the cuffs of her jumper over her hands and stared at the gravestone.  “We got really close.  I whispered all my dreams and hopes to her for months.”  Finn looked up at her face and gently stroked her hair, carefully pulling out a few leaves as she spoke.  “She was my fatty.  And I was her skinny.  And I let her down.  I let everyone down.”  She stroked the gravestone and Finn tried to think of something to say.  “I let her down cos I wanted to get with a boy.”  Finn looked away, knowing that she meant him and sucked his bottom lip.  She turned her face to him, “I didn’t mean-”

“It’s alright.”  He answered softly, and she turned back to the headstone. 

“I just totally forgot it.  And then when I remembered it, I thought that there’d be plenty of other chances.  I didn’t realise that she needed me so much.”

“You never know what’s going on in someone else’s life.”  Finn finally found his voice, “you can’t blame yourself.”

“But I do.  Just not nearly enough.”  She kissed the headstone slowly and Finn felt lost, not knowing what to say. 

“There’s so much pain in you Rae.”  He said softly, “I wish I could heal it.”  She turned to him.

“You do alright.”  She said with a reassuring smile.  He stroked her face.  She kissed him and he felt a bittersweet moment of clarity; he’d never heal it all, but he’d get through some of it at least.  He stood up and held his hand down to her.

“C’mon, you’re s’posed to be meeting the gang at the chippy for breakfast Miss Earl.”  He grinned.

“Alright Mr Earl.”  She said as she took his hand and stood up slowly.  She turned back to Tix’s headstone, “I’ll come visit again soon.”

They turned back towards the road, Rae could see Finn’s bike parked on the curb.  He walked with his head down, his mood low, she knew she should try to cheer him up, but she could barely breathe she was so sad. 

“I’m sorry I interrupted your visit to your Nan.”  She said quietly.

“It’s alright.” He said honestly, “Nan’d understand.  Gotta look after me girl.”  He turned his eyes to her and his eyes dropped to the necklace around her throat.  She often wore scarves now to hide her scars, so he didn’t get to see it on her out in public like this, just in their rooms.  But she wasn’t wearing a scarf today and seeing it reminded him sharply of his father’s words.  His Nan had intended that necklace to go to his wife.  To him that necklace was like an engagement ring, but he’d never told her that.  And even though they’d spoken of the future, that was a very different thing to being engaged.  One was an intangible concept, an idea; something that could pass in an instant.  The other was a very solid, very real intention, a plan; it was something that was very much going to happen.  He lowered his eyes, feeling unsure of how she’d react to something so solid; to his very real intent to spend the rest of his life with her.  He knew they were very young.  He knew that she had big plans for her life, and he had no intention of getting in the way of them.  But he needed her more than oxygen.  He watched her from the side of his eye as they walked. 

“Me Nan was a great believer in romance.”  Finn smiled reminiscently, “She believed in great loves that lasted a lifetime.”  Finn watched her face for any sign of how Rae felt about that idea.  He knew that plenty of people didn’t feel that way.  “But she was a realist, you know.”  He added, “She used to tell me that I could have a great love too.  But only if I were willing to work me arse off for it.”  He saw the ghost of a smile touch her lips and felt elated. 

“She said arse?”  They stopped at the bike and turned to each other. 

“She said arse.”  Finn smiled lopsidedly at her and Rae lowered her eyes, smiling sadly.  Finn kept his eyes on her, his gaze intent, filled with love. 

“I guess you chose the right girl.”

“Aye.”  His eyes dropped to the necklace and decided he had to tell her what it meant to him, for her to be wearing that.  It was a promise, a vow.  In his mind, it was the actuality of forever, not just the words.  He tried to will himself to speak, but his throat closed up, and she was turning to the bike, opening up the under seat compartment and getting the spare helmet out; Finn’s helmet hung from the handles as usual.  Finn watched the moment get away from him as she put the helmet on.  He let it pass.  A graveyard was not the place to tell Rae how real his plans actually were.  This was not the place to tell her that if it wasn’t her, then it would be no one for him.  That he’d never be able to love again after her; that he would rather die than be without her.  That he would never let her go; he’d do whatever it took to keep her happy enough to stay.  This wasn’t the place to tell her that the words ‘I love you’ were paltry shadows in comparison to the actual love and emotion he felt for her.  He grabbed his own helmet and jumped on the bike.  It wasn’t just Rae’s reactions to the solidness of his plans, to the true depth of his emotion for her that he worried about.  It was how vulnerable it made him.  He was utterly at her mercy.  And he knew it.  What would happen if she knew it too?

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Attitude’ by Guns n Roses _

[ _https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhFNMJym3Qg_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhFNMJym3Qg)

 

Dusk was slowly setting in as Simmy drew on his cigarette and scanned the street for something to do.  He was leaning up against the wall of the building, waiting for Macca to get off work before they headed out to have a good night.  He had Macca had had a bit of a strained friendship the last few months.  Macca had been insistent on Simmy keeping his mouth shut around Archie, and it had pissed Simmy off no end.  Simmy knew Finn was behind Macca’s change of heart and he was sick of people being more scared of that fucking pretty boy Finn than himself.  He might have to put Finn in his place.  But tonight was for drinking himself stupid. 

A pretty girl walked by and Simmy watched her, eyeing her tits and arse closely, a sexually predatory desire growing in the pit of his stomach.  And then someone walked in front of his vision.  He looked at the person blocking his view ready to yell some abuse at them.

“Faggot.”  Simmy grinned as he breathed the word.  Archie hadn’t seen Simmy as he came around the corner.  But he stopped and turned around when he heard the word. 

“Fuck you.”   He answered, clearly sick of this.  He took his glasses off and put them in his top pocket; just in case.

“You’d like that wouldn’t you, you anal astronaut.”

“Really?”  Archie shook his head, “Is that the best you got?”

“Arse bandit.”

“For a guy who’s straight you sure are obsessed with what I’m doing with another guy’s arse.”  Archie grinned, “sure you’re not a pillow biter too?”  Archie saw the rage flood into Simmy’s face a little too late, so he missed the punch aimed right at his face and staggered backwards, his left eye singing out in pain, his nose gushing blood.  But Archie laughed; he’d had worse, in training and in sex.  He raised his fists and advanced on Simmy, ready to knock the fuck out of him.  Simmy hit out with a wide swinging punch and Archie ducked it, and in the same movement planted an uppercut in Simmy’s solar plexus.  When Simmy doubled over, Archie had another uppercut ready for him. One for his chin.  Simmy fell back onto his arse and scooted back, shaking his head to clear it. 

“Bring it arse rimmer.”  Archie motioned for Simmy to fight him.  Simmy leapt up from the ground, tackling Archie to the ground and thumping him in the ribs and body several times, hard.  Archie took the blows and hit Simmy in the face and rolled him over to be straddling him.

“Get off me faggot!”  Simmy screamed in a panic, but Archie just hit him in the face again and sat on him.

“Don’t fight it Simmy!”  Archie laughed and grabbed him, leaned down and kissed his forehead, not wanting to go near Simmy’s bleeding mouth.  He got off Simmy and shaking his head he turned to go.  But Simmy grabbed his ankle and reefed Archie off his feet, face first into the ground.  He leapt up and kicked Archie in the side and Archie grunted from the impact, the wind knocked out of him.  Archie scrambled to his feet as Simmy punched him in the kidneys and stumbled forward, turning, ready to fight gain.  But Macca was here, pulling Simmy back. 

“The fuck you doing?”  Macca yelled at him.

“Fuck him, and fuck you if you take his side!”  Simmy replied angrily.

“Archie’s our mate!”  Macca retorted.  Simmy looked at Macca and then at Archie, who was slowly lowering his fists.  He spat in Archie’s face and stormed off.  Macca looked at Archie stunned.

“I’m sorry man.”  He shot before following Simmy, “Simmy!”  He said, trying to reason with him.  Archie was shocked, and it took a moment for him to gather himself.  He put his hand up to his face and wiped the bloody spit from his face.  The adrenaline started to ebb and he suddenly felt small and alone in a world that hated him for being gay.  He felt tears pricking at his eyes and decided to shake them off by running as fast as he could the rest of the way to Tom’s place.

 

 

 

 

_ ‘That’s How Strong My Love Is’ by Otis Redding _

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7T9HKmERv0&feature=kp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7T9HKmERv0&feature=kp)

 

Tom opened the door, the smile on his face instantly freezing as he saw the blood on Archie’s shirt, his whole body heaving as he panted, out of breath, his hands over his nose. 

“The fuck happened?”

“That fucking cunt.”  Archie said angrily, tears in his eyes, “belted me.”  Tom took him into the bathroom and carefully peeled Archie’s fingers off his nose. 

“Ouch.”  He said sympathetically.  “I’ll get you some ice.  Then you have to tell me everything.” 

When Tom came back, Archie was leaned over the sink, blood dripping into the basin.  Tom gave him a reassuring smile and carefully placed the ice over his nose, Archie taking it from him immediately.  Tom rubbed his back gently and waited for him to calm down.

“I don’t think it’s broken.”  Tom said softly, “just bleeding like it is.”  He grinned when Archie gave him a look of embarrassment.  “You gonna tell me what happened?”

“You remember that prick, from the first day we met?”  Tom nodded his head sadly, “at least I held me own this time.”  Archie took the ice off his nose and looked in the mirror at the swelling under his left eye.  The right eye seemed less affected.  The bleeding had stopped and Archie cleaned up the blood.  He noticed Tom’s brows, deeply furrowed as he looked everywhere but Archie.

“What’s wrong?”  He turned to Tom.

“I wish you didn’t have to experience this shit.”  He said softly, still not looking at Archie, “you deserve better than… being beaten cos you got a boyfriend.”  Archie took Tom’s hand and Tom’s brows furrowed further.

“It’s not your fault, you know.”

“I know, but…” He stopped and looked up at Archie for a long time, “I don’t like anyone leaving a mark on you.”  He smiled slyly, “unless it’s me.”  Archie gave him a wry grin. 

“Well you’re allowed to leave marks.”  Archie said saucily, “but that Simmy fucker needs to be taken down.”  He stripped off his shirt and cleaned up the blood that had dripped down his chest, “and I’m gonna need more training if I’m gonna do it.”  He grimaced determinedly.

Tom ran his fingers along Archie’s side, seeing bruises coming up on other parts of his body.

“I don’t like seeing you like this.”  He said sadly.  “It’s one thing to choose to have a couple of love-taps, but getting beaten…” he shook his head, “I think I need to have a talk to this Simmy guy.”

“There’s no point.”  Archie turned to him.

“I mean with my fists.”  Tom answered seriously.

“Gonna defend your boyfriend?”  Archie grinned at the thought and Tom nodded as Archie turned to him. 

“Surprisingly yes!”  Tom laughed, “I’ve never done that before.”  He ran his fingers down Archie’s face and kissed him slowly, deeply.  Archie felt his heart in his mouth; Tom had never kissed him like this, and when Tom pulled away, the look on his face told Archie that Tom had never kissed anyone like this before.  Tom looked at the floor, confused.  Archie opened his mouth to ask him what was wrong.

“Archie,” Tom said suddenly, looking up at him, “I think I’m in love with you.”  His brows furrowed and his eyes darted away, “I don’t know because I’ve never felt… love…”  He looked utterly bewildered and then suddenly smiled, “Yeah.”  He nodded his head, “Yeah I’m in love with you.”  He kissed Archie deeply and with a passion Archie had never experienced.  When he eventually pulled away they were both breathless.

“I love you too.”  Archie finally got to answer, he tried to grin, but his left eye protested, and it ended up lopsided. 

“Wow.”  Tom looked at him in awe and then laughed.  “I never thought I’d…” He laughed again.  “I’m in love with you.”  He pulled Archie to him, “and I wanna make love to you.”  He shook his head, “and I’ve never done that before… or wanted that before.”  He kissed Archie deeply again and Archie’s body reciprocated his heat.  “Go’ what’s happening to me?”  Tom marvelled as he looked at Archie’s face.  “Are you ok to… make love?”  He asked, somewhat taken aback by his own request.

“Yeah.”  Archie nodded and took Tom’s hands in his face in his hands kissing him slowly and deeply.  Archie hadn’t realised that this had been missing from his sex life until it started.  He supposed it was like that with all things in life.   But now that Tom kissed him with a heated love, he felt like he wouldn’t be able to live without it. 

“You sure?”  Tom asked, worried about Archie’s bruising, something he’d never worried about when he inflicted them himself. 

“I’m peachy-freakin’-keen!”  Archie laughed and Tom laughed with him, feeling the need to kiss him deeply before taking his hand and leading him to the bedroom.  Archie slowly stripped Tom’s shirt off, kissing his chest reverently, enjoying the sounds Tom made when his tongue danced across Tom’s skin.  Archie slowly undid Tom’s belt, and instead of using it to either hit Tom, or tie him up, or choke him, favourite pastimes of theirs, he simply dropped it to the floor.  Tom ran his hands slowly down Archie’s body, marvelling at every tiny detail. 

“I never realised how incredibly beautiful you are.”  Tom said slowly, his eyes following his hands across Archie’s bare flesh.  “I mean I knew… but… I didn’t really know… you understand?”  Archie shook his head.

“I’ve always seen how beautiful you are.”  Archie answered wryly.  “It’s hard not to see it.”  Tom looked up at his face.

“You know, no one’s ever told me that, though?”  Archie reached up and stroked Tom’s face.

“Well y’are.”  He replied. 

“Your skin is so nice.”  Tom marvelled and kissed Archie as he undid his pants.  He stepped back to take in Archie’s naked body, “Lie down.”  He breathed and Archie laid back on the bed, Tom reached for the lube and then straddled Archie slowly, kissing his lips tenderly.  Slowly he guided Archie into him and groaned happily as he rode Archie, drinking in his face, his body, the feel of Archie underneath him and inside of him.  Sex that didn’t involve some sort of pain, either for himself or his partner, or preferably both, was not something he had ever enjoyed before, and he had no doubt that he and Archie would continue to be rough, but he quite liked the idea of adding this more tender stuff to their repertoire; there was something so nice, fulfilling even, about slowly revelling in Archie, in making love with him.  He wanted lose himself in Archie entirely.  They kissed, their hips slowly grinding together, murmuring words of love and awe and admiration to each other.  Archie ran his hands up Tom’s back, enjoying the feel of his muscles moving.

“I gotta be inside of you.”  Tom moaned and slid off Archie to position himself between his thighs.  Archie gasped happily as Tom entered him and slid in as deeply as he could, kissing from Archie’s neck up to his mouth.  “I’m gonna make love with you all night Archie.”  Tom told him.  And Archie kissed him in response, his inside tingling and jittering with love.  “I love you.”  Tom whispered through his kisses.

“Oh god I love you.”  Archie groaned, his fingers curling in Tom’s hair and pulling him in for more kisses.  Archie felt that he would happily never stop kissing Tom.  Indeed, Archie felt like he could almost die happily in Tom’s arms.  He finally understood Finn and Chop and their devotion to their partners; Tom was fast becoming his lifeblood.

 

 

When the dawning sun shone through the open blinds the next morning Archie woke with a smile on his face.  Tom’s arm was slung over his stomach, and when he turned to face Tom, he pulled Archie closer in his sleep.  When the sun shone on his face, he looked truly glorious and Archie’s breath caught in his throat as his eyes slowly opened.  He grinned up at Archie.

“I’ll have to whip that smile off your face.”  Archie said with an equally happy grin.

“Oh I love it when you talk dirty to me.”  He pulled Archie closer and kissed him and sighed happily when he pulled back from the kiss.  “You are perfect Archie.”  He said happily, “utterly perfect, in every single way.”  He ran his fingers down his cheek and looked into his eyes, “I’m very lucky to have accidentally run into you that day.  I love you.”

“Might have to send Simmy some flowers then huh?”

“Oh fuck no!”  Tom laughed, “I’m still gonna belt the fuck out of him for touching my man.”

“I love you.”  Archie grinned.

“I suppose I’d better meet all you family and friends?”  He asked quietly, worried about what they’d think of him.

“I suppose so.”  Archie agreed.

“D’you think they’ll think I’m good enough for you?”

“Why would you even ask that?”  Tom shrugged.

“My family is virulently anti-gay.”  He sighed, “My father has at least stopped trying to beat the fag out of me.  But my mother still lectures me when I visit.”  He looked down, “I keep thinking I should cut ties with them, but…”

“They’re your family.”

“Yeah.”  Tom said slowly.  “What are your parents like?”

“Not too bad.”  Archie said, considering how they’d responded, “My mum seems to think she’d gotten a gay best friend.”  Tom laughed and gave him a sympathetic look, “I think Dad still doesn’t know what to think, but he loves me, you know?  So he’ll be fine.”

“Brothers?  Sisters?”

“None.”  Archie said, “but me best mate, is kinda like me brother, and he already knew.  Here I was thinking I’d done a bang up job of hiding it, kissing all them girls…. But no.”  Archie shook his head, bemused, “I’ve even made out with his girlfriend.  She quite a good kisser that one.”

“Was this before or after he was with her?”

“Before, o’ course!”  Archie laughed.  “He told me he were right jealous of how close we were and how much of a crush Rae had on me.  Cos even though he knew I were gay, he thought Rae didn’t know.”

“Right, you’re gonna have to run me through your friendship group and everything that’s happened with them, so I can make sure I’ve got it all stored in my memory for when I meet them!” 

“It’ll bore you to death!”  Archie laughed, “You don’t need to know all this stuff!”

“Yeah I do, because it matters to you.”  Tom kissed his lips slowly.  “So it matters to me.”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Lullaby’ by The Cure _

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijxk-fgcg7c>

 

“It feels wrong to be going back to school today.”  Chloe said unhappily as she sat down at the table.  Rae groaned sympathetically and Finn gave a tight grin.  He was still very careful around Chloe, being careful to never be alone with her, they didn’t hug, they didn’t touch each other.  He knew from the looks she gave him that she still had feelings for him, so he was extra careful.  If ever she were to stop having feelings for him, he supposed that they may be able to normalise their friendship to something more like it was before, but only if Rae was comfortable with that. 

Archie walked into the chippy looking far too happy and pleased with himself.  When he saw all of their glum faces he paused.

“What happened?”  He asked with real concern; with the way the past few months had gone it could have anything, but his mind instantly went to Izzy.

“What happened to your face?”  Finn asked as he picked up a chip and ate it slowly.

“Simmy.”

“That’s fucking it.”  Finn said angrily.  “When I see him, he’s going down.”

“I can take care of him.”  Archie shrugged, “I held me own this time; the training’s working.”

“I’m still gonna punch the shit out o’ him.”  Finn answered, unmoved.  “No one punches my best mate!”  He paused and furrowed his eyes, “Without his permission…” They all started to chuckle. 

“Well you’ll have to get in line behind Tom, he wants Simmy’s blood too.”  He started to grin foolishly again. 

“You’re too happy Archie, stop it!  We’re going back to school.”  Chloe said and sighed heavily. 

“Oh fuck school, Tom said he’s in love with me.”  Archie grinned, “That’s why nothing today is gonna ruin my happy mood.”  Finn rolled his eyes as the two girls made noises of delight. 

“Do you love him?”  Finn asked and Archie nodded, “then good!”  He grinned and Archie sat down slowly and started to eat some chips.

“I was thinking that we should make it a tradition that we six all go away for the holidays.”  Archie said, “I been thinking it since Sutherland.” 

“Sounds like a plan Archie.”  Rae said happily, Chloe agreeing.  Finn pursed his lips but said nothing.  The first time they’d gone away on holiday Chloe had kissed him and the second time Izzy had gotten pneumonia.  They ate in comfortable silence for a while.

“It’s weird not having Chop or Izzy here.”  Chloe said morosely.  “Any word?”

“She’s still comatose.”  Rae said softly, “they put a feeding tube in and oxygen and an IV, and the heart monitor and all that stuff.”  Rae had been designated as the getter of information on Izzy since all non-family visits had been stopped.  She would head down to the hospital and Bradley, Victoria or Chop would give her news to bring back to them.  “The doctors are strangely upbeat about it.  Which I don’t understand.” 

“What’ll we do if she-” Chloe stopped herself, a lump in her throat and looked up at them, catching Archie’s eyes.  “Now I’ve gone and ruined your good mood.”  She said apologetically and he shrugged sympathetically.

“She’s not gonna die.”  Finn said firmly and Rae nodded.  Chloe looked away and took in a deep breath.  Finn calmed himself and sighed sadly, “I’ll miss her laugh.”  He said softly.

“I think I’ll miss the way her eyes always opened up wide when we told her something dirty.”  Rae said to Chloe and Chloe laughed sadly. 

“I’ll miss how good a person she is.”  Archie said sadly. 

“I’ll miss her dancing.  She’s the most unco-ordinated seat dancer, but ballet – easy!”  Chloe said with a sad smile. 

“I’ll miss the way she said Chop’s name, and the way she kept him in line.”  Finn said with a grin that they all shared.

“I’ll miss how she could always see the good in people.”  Rae turned her eyes to Archie

“I’ll miss how easy it was to make her smile.” 

“I’ll just miss her.”  Chloe shook her head, tears streaming down her face.  Rae put her arms around her and they sat in silence, Finn’s hand gently stroking Rae’s thigh, Archie looking down at his fingers. 

“We gotta stop talking like she already in the ground.”  Finn said sounding defeated. 

“It’s just preparing ourselves for the worst outcome.”  Archie replied softly.  They sat in silence, no one eating, everyone lost in their thoughts.

They heard the door open and two girls walked in.  Rae recognised one of them as Liam’s half-sister, Eli.  She lived with her mother, not with Liam and his mother, but she was still close with Liam.  Liam really loved Eli; was always banging on about how she’d make something of herself, how she was born right.  Rae noticed her red puffy eyes and the way she walked; dejected, and worried if she was alright.  There was a lot of misery in Liam’s extended family.  Eli looked around the chippy, not really seeing anything until her eyes fell upon Rae.  She smiled affectionately, a deep sorrow still in her eyes, and walked over slowly, the other girl following.

“Rae!”  She said warmly and threw her arms around her.  Rae returned the hug; Eli was a lovely kid, just 14 and as kind as they came. 

“This is Eli everyone.”  She told them and introduced the gang to her, she smiled wanly and turned back to Rae.

“So you haven’t heard?”  it was more a statement than a question.

“Heard what?”

“Liam tried to kill himself, he’s in hospital in a coma.”  Rae gasped in shock and heard Chloe doing the same beside her.  And with piercing clarity, a conversation she’d had with Chloe came back to her.

_I don’t care.  I don’t care.  He’s bad news Chloe._

_He needs a friend._

_Well he’ll have to find someone else._

_You didn’t give up on me._

_You’re different Chlo.  Trust me.  Promise me you’ll try to stay away from him?_

_Ok Rae._

“Oh my god.”  Rae breathed.  She could feel Finn’s stiff body beside her, hear Chloe starting to cry, see Archie shaking his head slowly.  “Can we visit him?”

“Family only at the moment, he’s in ICU.”  Eli said sadly.  “But they’ll probably let other people in soon they said.”

“Can you call me when I can visit?  Or with any news at all?”  Rae felt tears at the back of her throat, and they made her voice waver. 

“Of course Rae.”  She hugged her again and whispered in her ear, “I hope you two get back together, he was better with you.”  She turned and went to the counter with her friend.  Finn turned his eyes to Rae, and from the look on his face, she could tell that he had heard what Eli had said. 

 

 

***

 

 

“Oh Liam.”  He said softly.  “You’ll be glad to know that you’re another nail in my coffin.”  He sighed and sat back in his chair, feeling a litany of his failings stacking against him, “I feel like I’m Dr Martin Dysart in sodding ‘Equus’.  Striking at children’s heads in the dark, desperately trying to make them… sound and well… trying to fix them…”  He took his bottom lip into his mouth and looked at Liam, desperately sad, “I let you down.”  Kester slowly took Liam’s hand, “I should have been watching closer.  I shouldn’t have let you be discharged.  That day you sliced your arm… I should have known then… I just thought you were repeating your previous manic behaviour…”  He shook his head.  “I’m sorry I let you down.”  He sat in silence for a long time, the hospital staff leaving him to it; he worked here too. 

Some time later the nurse showed in a women.  Kester looked up at her; her long hair was tied back in a messy ponytail, she wore sky high stilettos and a pair of black fitted jeans with a fitted ‘A Clockwork Orange’ shirt.  She breathed out sadly when she saw Liam and looked up at Kester.

“Hi I’m here from the school, my name’s Elsa, we just wanted to offer our support to Liam’s family.”

“I’m not family.”  Kester said softly, “I work here.”

“Oh.”  Elsa looked around.  “So there’s no family?”

“His mother is not around at the moment.”  Kester said through tight lips, “his half-sister found him, and her mother limits the amount of time she can spend with Liam.”  He looked back down at Liam, “she thinks Liam’s a bad influence.”  Elsa sat down and crossed her legs looking sorrowfully at Liam.

“I hardly know him.”  She admitted sadly, “he got sent to the principals’ office a fair bit.  And I’m just the vice principal, so I never got that… He hit on me and tried to give me a smoke once.”  Elsa smiled wanly.  Kester smiled fondly.  “Other than that, I didn’t know him.”  She reached over and pushed his curls back, “I try to know the kids at my school, and I know most of them by name and not much else.  This makes me realise that’s not good enough.” 

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I want to prevent stuff like this.  I want to see it coming.”

“Sometimes that’s not possible.”

“Oh god, you’re a therapist aren’t you?’  She looked up at him and he nodded.  “You can always tell when you’re talking to a therapist.  You never get to see them, just the psychoanalysing and the attempts to fix you.”

“That’s what my ex-wife said.”  Kester answered grimly.  “My girlfriend says it too.”  Elsa shrugged unrepentantly. 

“You can’t fix people.”  Elsa said softly, “they’re not things that get broken.”  Kester furrowed his eyebrows and thought about that. 

“But if people are like trees, living things that live and grow… isn’t getting the parasites that eat and destroy our leaves, off us, a type of fixing?”

“But we’re not trees, we’re people.  Getting rid of parasites is simply taking care of ourselves.”  Elsa dismissed his argument, “The concept of fixing implies that there is a ‘right’ way to be a human being.”  

“But isn’t there?”  Kester asked softly.

“No there’s not.”  Elsa shook her head, “as soon as you think in terms of a right way to be a person, you end up with very narrow definitions, especially within your profession.  It wasn’t that long ago that you thought being gay was a psychological disorder.”  She added pointedly, she herself was pansexual and was not impressed with psychiatry’s history with the queer community. 

“You’re right.”  Kester said slowly, “it is a very flawed profession.  But its heart is in the right place.”  Kester said honestly, “and the same can be said for teaching; that you simply teach children to be a little cog in a big machine.”

“Oh please.”  Elsa scoffed, “I’m an arts teacher, 90% of what I do is teaching kids to question all of that.”  She shook her head and looked back down at Liam.  Kester slowly shook his head in defeat, his eyes still on Elsa.

“You are a very singular woman.”

“That’s probably the best compliment I’ve had in a while.”  She smiled softly. 

“I’m sure you get plenty.”  Kester folded his hands in his lap and looked back at Liam.

“Yes but none of them interesting.”  Kester felt a small sense of satisfaction at that but quickly turned his attention back to Liam. 

They sat in silence, neither knowing what to say to Liam, and both of them feeling that failing acutely. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Mama Kin’ by Aerosmith _

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQAsvzeO_00&feature=kp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQAsvzeO_00&feature=kp)

 

Rae felt that there was so much happening in her world that she simply couldn’t register it anymore.  She tried to grab every moment of uncomplicated happiness she could, because generally her life was simply out of control.  Right now, she had discovered one of life’s simple pleasures; watching Finn do manual labour.  She stood at the back door and watched Finn and Karim in the backyard, really she only watched Finn.  They were both shirtless and sweating in the warm spring heat, as they worked.  Rae sighed with desire as she watched Finn’s body moving.  Beside her Linda sighed with a similar tone, her eyes on Karim.  Karim had been wanting to build a bigger aviary for some time, but it was a two person job.  As soon as Finn had heard, he’d offered his help. 

“How’d I end up with such a stunner half naked in me backyard?”  Linda asked wistfully, happily. 

“How’d we end up with two o’ them?”  Rae agreed and Linda turned her eyes to her daughter. 

“Well o’ course you would Rae!”  Linda answered, “Why would any young man not be interested in you?”  Rae pulled a disbelieving face.

“And why would any man not be interested in you?”  She replied without looking at her, keeping her eyes on Finn instead.  Linda looked at her for a long moment.

“Well that’s different pet.  Innit?”

“How?”  Rae turned to look at her mother.

“You’re…” Linda struggled for the right words, “You’re brilliant.”  She said eventually and Rae shook her head and looked away.

“Brilliant don’t matter when you’re fat.”  Her eyes fell on Finn, that old familiar fear creeping across her heart.  Linda put an arm around Rae’s shoulders.

“I think we’ve proven that wrong you know.”  Rae felt herself smiling, in spite of herself, but those thought crept in again.

“It don’t matter though.”  Rae said softly, “I still keep questioning it.  Like you do.”  Linda nodded her head sadly in response. 

“Well we have to learn not to.”  Linda sat down at the kitchen table and looked into Aiesha’s crib, she was sleeping soundly.

“I know.”  Rae joined her, “but I keep thinking that if I do that… if I let myself completely trust this relationship is real… that when he leaves.”  Rae turned to look at Finn as he dug a hole for a supporting strut, “I’ll be all surprised.  And people will say ‘well what did you expect?  Look at him and look at you.’ ”  Rae shook her head, “and then I hate myself for thinking like that.”  She said sadly, “Finn has never given me a reason to doubt him.  He’s done… everything… he’s nearly died… for me.”  Her eyes looked at the scar on his stomach and she swallowed back her tears, “why do I still doubt it?”  Linda reached out and took her hand, “Why can’t I stop myself from doubting that this is real?”

“I dunno pet.”  Linda sympathised, “I’m married to mine… got lovely baby Aiesha.”  She looked grimly out the door to Karim, “but I doubt it too.”

“It’s not him I doubt.”  Rae said softly, “it’s me.”  Rae looked at her mother pleadingly, wanting just one piece of good advice from her, “how do I stop it?”

“I’ve never figured it out.”  Linda lowered her eyes. 

“I’m gonna ruin everything.”  Rae said bitterly. 

“Me too.”  Linda looked down at Rae’s bitten fingernails and sighed deeply.  “But then I remember that he loves me.  For whatever reason.”  Linda squeezed Rae’s hand, “Just keep remembering he loves you.”

“I try to.”  Rae smiled wanly.

“So he’s told you that he loves you?”  Linda watched Rae closely. 

“Yeah.”  Rae smiled slowly, “but even before he said it, he’d told me in so many ways.”  Rae looked back out at Finn.  He and Karim where trying to talk

“You’re both very young.”  Linda tried not to worry, but she knew how boys liked to change their minds.

“I know.”  Rae answered, “But I don’t know if that matters with us.”

“It always matters.”  Linda considered this for a minute, “I think that you should take a step back and just really think about your feelings for Finn, and what you want from life and-”

“Mum, I love Finn.  I don’t have a life without him being in it.”  Linda pursed her lips in thought.

“It’s very dangerous to pin your whole life on another human being.”  Linda’s mouth pulled into a tight determined line.

“Not with him, it’s not.”  Rae answered defiantly.  “When I think he’d leave me, it’s not cos of anything he’s done to make me think that, it’s cos I think I don’t deserve him.”  Rae continued, “He’d die for me.  He’s already handed his entire life over to me.”  Rae said feeling oddly powerful.  “I’m his everything.”  She turned her face back toward Finn, as if really understanding him for the first time; “He’s at my mercy mum.  Not the other way around.”  She felt like she had discovered some great secret as she watched him sharing a smoke with Karim, they were both laughing at something, “sometimes I forget that, or I can’t believe it’s true.  But it doesn’t change that it’s the truth.  That’s the way it is.”  Rae watched him, loving every part of him fiercely, and thinking about how hard she was gonna fuck him tonight at his house in their nice double bed. 

“I still think it might be useful for you to spend some more time with other people, or focusing on your future or just being young.”

“You got nothing to worry about mum.”  Rae leaned forward to kiss her mum’s cheek.  The diamond fell forward and hung from her neck, catching Linda’s eye.  “I’m gonna ask them if they want a drink.”  Rae said as she went to the door.  Linda watched her go out to them, knowing that she did have a lot to worry about; she wasn’t a fool.  She knew that a necklace like that meant that Finn already felt ownership over her girl, even though they were so young.  Finn was a good lad, there was no denying it.  But he was still just a lad.  Linda worried that Rae was getting in too deep, too fast and too young. 

Linda followed Rae outside.

“Would you gents like some drinks?”  Rae was asking.  Karim wanted some lemonade and Finn asked for a beer.  Rae went inside while Linda stayed outside.

“I’ve so missed having Rae at home.”  Linda let her eyes rest on Finn as he wiped some sweat from his face.  He nodded, not sure what to say and Karim agreed with a big grin.  “I think we’ll be seeing Rae at home more don’t you Finn?  So she can spend more time with her family, and perhaps you can spend more time with yours?”  Linda said pointedly and Finn was at a loss; unsure how to reply. 

“Finn is family.”  Karim said and slapped Finn on the back.  Linda narrowed her eyes slightly.  It wasn’t that she didn’t like Finn, or that she didn’t think he loved Rae, it was that she was protecting Rae from making such a huge commitment so young. 

“Don’t you want to spend more time with your parents Finn?”

“It’s just me dad.”  Finn answered her without thinking.

“Even more reason to spend some time with him.”  Linda answered, “He must get very lonely.”  Linda fussed, “And I’m sure that when Rae’s over there you don’t spend much time with him!”

“Um….”  Finn tried to think of a response.

“So it’s decided!”  Linda said happily, “you and Rae can spend a little less time together and a little more time with your family.”

“But Saul is still-“

“Oh you do talk more random that duck shite Finn.”  Linda said, “Don’t be ridiculous, where could she be more safe than in that home?”  Linda answered, “We’ve improved all the locks, and we won’t leave her alone in the house.  She’ll be fine.  I think you deserve some time off!”

“I don’t actually want time off.”  Finn started to worry that this conversation was getting away from him.

“Aren’t you sweet?”  Linda answered pleasantly, “but I think at least one night a week can be spent apart, what do you think?”  Linda made a small questioning noise, “let’s start there, and work up ok?”

“I don’t really think so…” Finn was saying as Rae came out with the drinks.  He put his arm around Rae’s waist almost as if to hide behind her.  Rae recognised the distress in Finn and turned to her mum, wondering what she’d done know.

“What’s going on?”  Rae asked.

“Oh we’ve just decided that you’re going to spend Sunday nights apart, and work our ways up until you’re not having sleep overs on school nights.”  Linda said happily, “Isn’t that a good idea.”

“No.”  Rae answered angrily. 

“I think focusing on your future and your schoolwork is an excellent idea.  I won’t stop Friday and Saturday night sleep overs.  Just school nights.  That’s being more than reasonable.”  Linda declared, “And if you’re not careful,” she warned as Rae started to open her mouth to protest, “I’ll stop him coming over on all weeknights right now, instead of doing it gradually.”  Rae snapped her mouth shut, her eyes wide with anger.  “I’ll start some lunch.”  Linda said in a happy sing song voice and went inside.

“Seriously, we need to stop whatever drugs they’ve got her on.”  She turned to Karim, “can you talk to her?”  Karim sighed slowly.

“I try.”  He said uneasily, “but…” He shook his head.

“I know she’s impossible.”  Rae agreed.

“She is fragile.”  Karim countered gently.  Rae sighed with defeat.  She turned to look at Finn, who still looked like he’d been bitten by a poisonous snake and didn’t know what to do with himself. 

“Karim, I can’t sleep in that room by myself.”  Rae almost panicked, Karim saw the way her hand went up to the scars on her neck unconsciously.  The other one hugging her stomach.

“If we have to, you can move in with me.”  Finn said softly, his eyes falling to the necklace.  Rae turned to look at him.

“But Aiesha…?” 

“We’ll visit.”  He answered as if that were obvious, “I love that little sprat.” 

“I dunno.”  Rae said anxiously. 

“It’s alright.”  Finn shook his head, “Too much, too soon.”  He smiled bracingly.  “I’ll just start sneaking in again.”  He said softly, hiding just how much her reluctance had hurt him.

“I don’t like even being in that room by myself.”  Rae started to cry and Finn took her hands and put them on his chest soothingly.  Karim looked in through the kitchen window at Linda as she happily prepared lunch.

“Maybe we could tell your mum that?”

“What’s the point?”  Finn put his arms around her and wished he had handled the situation with Linda better.

“You two go.”  Karim said softly, “we finish… later.”  He motioned to the aviary and Finn nodded.  He led her to their car and opened the door for her.  Rae got in feeling anxious and angry.  Why was her mother doing this now?  Finn had been allowed to stay over at her house for months, it was infuriating that her mother would try to curtail that now.

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing’ by Chris Isaak _

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPZQ7ZLy3MI&feature=kp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPZQ7ZLy3MI&feature=kp)

 

“D’you just wanna come hang out at my place for a couple o’ days?”  Rae nodded in response and he backed the car out of the drive, thankful that she already had a large bag of clothes at his place.

They drove in silence, Finn considering what it meant that Rae had been reluctant to move in.  Perhaps he’d best hold off on telling her how serious he really was?

“I’m sorry about me mum.”  She finally spoke as he opened the door to his room.

“Don’t worry about it.”  He looked over at the huge bag of clothes, a dress was half sticking out of it.  He looked around his room and went over to his huge set of drawers and opened the top drawer looking in at all the junk he was storing in there.  She came up beside him and looked in the drawer as he grabbed his bin and started to throw most of it out.

“What is this stuff?” She picked up a triangular piece of plastic with rounded edges.

“That’s a pick for me guitar.”

“I know that.”  Rae answered and gave him a dirty look, “I like the colour.”

“Well that stays then.”  He took it from her hand and put it on his shelf. 

“What’s the rest of it?”

“Well here we have an old matchbox car.”  He tossed it in the bin and Rae tried to stop him but he shook his head, “and this is the penthouse I knew I had around here somewhere.”  Rae had just a glimpse of a very thin, platinum blonde girl of perfection with huge round breasts on the cover before it was in the bin, Finn not having even looked at it.  “And this is an old science assignment.”  He held up an obviously, but beautifully handmade model of a spider, before it too was in the bin.  “This is basically me junk drawer.”  He explained as he continued the brutal culling.

“I don’t have enough drawers to have a junk drawer.”  Rae shook her head.

“Well the one underneath it is a porno drawer.”  Rae opened her mouth in shock.

“You’ve got more?”

“Aye.”  He said with a stoic look, “they’re all going in the bin too.”  Rae tried to open the drawer to see in, but the top drawer blocked her view.  Finn rolled his eyes and pushed the top drawer in a bit.  There was another collection Juggs magazine and several black VHS videos with no cases. 

“Why’d do you keep some under the bed when you got room here?”

“I kept me favourite ones under the bed.”  He shrugged.  “Well actually.”  He took a deep breath, “These ones in here were me favourite too, but I kinda rotated them, you know?”  He shook his head and tried to not be too embarrassed. 

“So you wouldn’t get bored?”  She asked with a strange look, but Finn understood her thought process.

“I’m not gonna get bored of you.”  He said firmly, “wanking’s a whole different thing to getting to do the real thing Rae.”  She decided to let it go and looked back in the drawer.  “Especially with you.”

“I wanna see these pornos.”  Rae said curiously.

“No you don’t.”  Finn blushed and started to put them in the bin.  And then realised not everything would fit.  “I’m just gonna get a rubbish bag.”  He left the room and Rae looked at the videos; there were ten.  She picked up two at random, and put them in her bag, hoping he wouldn’t notice.  She picked up a Juggs and noticed that this was a particularly battered edition, she flicked through and was again pleased to see the wide variety of body types; everything from stick thin to truly huge.  She looked down at a painfully skinny redhead with tiny breasts and wondered if Finn had masturbated to her; he had told her that he liked all types, therefore it stood to reason that that included this type.  She turned the page to see an image of a woman that weighed easily twice what Rae did.  She was presented erotically, with no hint at there being a punchline.  This fat beauty was not a joke, she was to be revered, lusted after… masturbated to, alongside images of skinnier girls.  Rae couldn’t wrap her head around the notion.  The phone rang and she heard Finn pick it up downstairs.  She stared at the fat woman for a long time, thoughts of what Janice, Elsa, and Finn himself had said to her rolling around in her mind.  But she couldn’t quite believe it all… She couldn’t think of herself as sexy; not really.  Rae looked back at the huge woman, Finn said he liked all types, but she just couldn’t imagine him masturbating to this girl.  She flicked forward and noticed a few pages sticking together.  She pulled a face halfway between ginning and grimacing with grossness; she understood that if the pages were sticking together, he’d looked at them quite a bit.  He’d probably masturbated to them a lot and gotten semen on them.  She opened up to the page before them and was struck by a girl that looked similar to Stacey Stringfellow in the body, but the face was closer to Izzy, her hair was brown.  Rae looked at her perfect body for a long time, wondering if she really wanted to see what was on the pages that were stuck together.  There was a quick write up next to the girl about appreciating brunettes and Rae shook her head slowly as she gently started to open the stuck together pages.  The first image was of the same slender brunette girl with short hair, bent over and looking over her shoulder at the camera, the main focus being her arse.  Rae looked at her small thighs that didn’t touch and felt painfully self-conscious.  She flicked her eyes to the opposite page and froze.  The model on this page stood with her pelvis cocked sexually, wearing nothing but stilettos and bright red lipstick.  Rae’s eyes travelled up her lovely legs, legs that touched at the top, quite a bit.  She took in her round stomach, this girl’s body was almost the same as Rae’s, possibly just a little bigger, she saw the way the long brown hair tumbled down her pale generous breasts.  But it was the face that did it.  Those large brown expressive eyes and a seductive grin on full lips.  She didn’t look like Rae exactly, but there was enough similarity for Rae to take pause.  Her fingers ran down the side of the page and she felt the dried semen there.  He’d masturbated to one of these images.  Probably both of them.  And one of them bared a passing resemblance to her. 

“Holy shit.”  She turned the page and the thin and plump girls were embracing each other, their breasts pressed against each other, the thin one looking longingly at the larger girl, the larger girl looking at the camera, inviting the viewer in.  On the opposite page, the larger girl wore a nirvana shirt that was too tight and didn’t cover the bottom of her breasts, she had her hands in her hair and was knelt on a bed, her full bush on display, those ruby red lips and that same smile.  Rae felt the pages; he’d masturbated to this too.  She carefully opened the next page to see a picture of the thin brunette, her legs splayed as she sat looking at the camera with a cocky smirk.  On the opposing page the thinner brunette was licking the nipple of the larger brunette.  Rae was again struck by the passing resemblance she bore to this naked girl; right down to the same shaped body.  But here she was, presented as sexual and desirable; something Rae had never really seen before.  She opened the next page; the centrefold.  The picture was taken from above and showed the slender brunette going down on the larger girl, the larger girl had a look of orgasmic pleasure on her face while she looked right at the camera, almost right at you.  It was so erotic.  The slender girl’s arse was shown to perfection, but her face was buried in pussy; it was the larger girl that was the focus in this picture, and Rae found the way her legs were splayed, the shape of her body, the way her hair tumbled over her breasts, to be strangely arousing.  And her face was so perfect in that moment of bliss, even though Rae knew she must be acting.  Rae suddenly had the urge for Finn to photograph her during sex, so she could see if she had that look in her eye when she came.  Rae was still looking at the picture when Finn came in, he looked over her shoulder to see what she’d found and blushed.  He looked at her face closely, watching the way her eyes drank in the photo.

“You see it huh?”  He asked, nervous as to how she’d react.

“She looks a little like me.”  Rae said softly.

“Aye.”  Finn nodded.  “There’s quite a few girls in Juggs that do look a little like you… for some it’s their face… others it’s the way their arse curves or their knockers… stuff like that.”  He shrugged, “none of them are you though.”  He put his hand firmly on her arse and felt a deep appreciation at being allowed to do that. 

“You masturbated to her?”  Rae asked softly, still confused that he really had liked all types of bodies. 

“Aye.”  He answered seriously, his hand dropping from her arse, “does it bother you?”

“And other girls… thinner?”  She watched him nod slowly, “and bigger?”  Another nod.  She looked back at her almost doppelganger.  She was so sexy.  Is this what Finn saw when he looked at her?  It was so confusing.  It challenged every belief she still held about herself, in a strangely intimate way.  Finn was starting to worry, unable to read her expression.

“I told you always liked all types o’ girls.”  Finn replied, “I weren’t lying.”  He tried to explain, worried by the way she stared at the photo, “I know that girls are more than just bodies, so you know, you gotta like ‘em for more than that… and I do like you for more than that… I mean… I love you – that’s a totally different thing.” He tried to explain to her and hated the way he was babbling, “But if you’re wanking, all you’re looking at is their bodies.”  He felt himself blushing again and looked away, “It’s not like you wank to a personality.”  He mumbled guiltily, “I just always liked lots o’ different body types.”  He shrugged.  “I’m sorry.”

“You actually masturbated to a girl that looks a little like me…?” Rae opened the next stuck together page, it was the larger women; her big round arse on display as she bent, holding her ankles, looking through her legs with a grin.  “I didn’t know boys wanked to bigger girls.”  She muttered. 

“I have always liked big girls.”  He replied honestly, “and I’ve always liked small girls too.”  He added and looked at Rae, “When it came to wanking, I liked it all.”  He sighed, hoping she’d understand, “But what that means, is that when I fell in love with you Rae, it was neither because of, nor in spite of, your body.  I know you’re worried it were in spite o’ your body.  But it weren’t…”  He touched her face gently, “I fell in love with all of you.  Every last bit.”  He saw the look on her face and tried to explain, “I didn’t fall in love with your body and then have to deal with a shitty personality.  And I didn’t fall in love with your personality and then think you had a shitty body.”  He grinned, “I fell in love with all of you, all at the same time; it‘s all perfect.”  He motioned at her, “All of this you got going on, absolutely perfect.” 

“You really weren’t disappointed by my body?”  He could tell that slowly, she was believing him more and more.  “Not even a little bit?”  He looked her up and down.

“I felt quite chuffed about your body, when I finally got to see it; it’s quite a bonus really.”  She grinned and looked away. 

“It’s so hard to believe that you’ve always liked bodies like mine.”  She looked back down at the magazine for confirmation.

“All bodies are good bodies Rae.”  He said as he tried to get her to look at him, she reluctantly did, “Yours just happens to be the best.”  He looked back down at the picture, “She don’t look exactly like you, but when I started to crush on you… it did dawn on me that she looked a little like you.”  He grinned, “And I must admit, I wondered if you looked like her under your clothes.”  He looked her up and down again, “It made me crazy.”  He closed his eyes thinking about those days before he had seen her naked, “I just so desperately wanted to see you naked.”  He opened his eyes, “When I finally did, you were beyond anything I could o’ imagined.  Your body is so sexy.”  He looked down at the magazine, “none o’ this stuff even comes close to comparing.”  He looked her in the eye, “Your body is perfect Rae,” he said honestly, “I know you don’t believe me.  But I’ll go to me fucking grave saying it.  Your body,” he said slowly, emphasising each word, “is perfect.”

“So you looked at her when we was going out but before you saw me…?”  Rae didn’t know how that idea made her feel.

“No.”  Finn said, “I actually stopped looking at them a few days after I met you.  Just didn’t have the urge to wank.”  He shrugged.  “I thought it were a little weird at the time, but now I know why.”  He touched her face again, “I had a quite a few wet dreams about you, and after the sexy party…” He looked away, deeply embarrassed, “I may have started to fantasise about you when I… started masturbating again.”  He looked back at her grinning, “The things I’ve done to you in my head Rae Earl…”  He took the magazine out of her hands and pulled her into his arms, “I’m gonna need a lifetime to get through ‘em all.”  They kissed, Rae feeling so sexy and desirable.  She was starting to feel that more and more, and it seemed strange that finding more of his porn collection would add to that rather than subtract from it, but it did.  She felt sexually powerful.  There were so many clues, and pieces of evidence that slowly eroded her fear that this wasn’t real, that he’d suddenly realise what she was.  He pulled back from the kiss grinning shyly.

“Sorry I got so much porn.”

“S’alright.”  She said begrudgingly, “D’you think Janice would want these?”  Rae asked and he shrugged as he started to put the magazines in the plastic bag.

“I don’t care.”  He answered a little brusquely, “It’s embarrassing how many of these I’ve got.”  He shook his head, “This isn’t even me last stash.”  His eyes strayed over to his other big set of drawers and Rae laughed.

“Where d’you get ‘em all?” 

“D’you know how many brothers Chop’s got?”  Finn shook his head.  “I been collecting them since I were about 12.”  He shook his head.

“Twelve?”  She asked with a shocked voice, “you wonton hussy.”

“Aye.”  He laughed, “Imagine what I’m gonna do to you now I got me hands on you.”

“I look forward to it.”  She grinned and picked up a magazine.

“You can’t get rid of all of them.”  Rae looked down and flicked through it. 

“Yeah I can.”  He looked around his room, his focus returning, “I really need to clean out all me drawers and stuff.”  He emptied out the second drawer in minutes and was back onto the top drawer.  “I haven’t gone through these in years.”  Rae picked up a Barbie head.  Finn shrugged and shook his head to indicate he had no idea where it had come from.  She picked up a pair of children’s glasses and looked at Finn quizzically.

“Spare pair of Archie’s glasses.”  He grinned, “When we was kids he’d always break ‘em or lose ‘em.” 

“Go’ you two were cute when you were young’uns.”

“Pretty cute.”  Finn agreed.  Rae sat on the bed and watched him as he worked; he seemed too focused to engage him in real conversation.  When he’d finished cleaning out the two drawers he went to his wardrobe and pushed his clothes to one side, taking a few things off the hangers and dumping them into the bottom of the wardrobe.

“Are we cleaning up your room now?”  Rae asked solemnly, “Cos I’d rather get in bed… if you know what I mean.”  He turned to her and grinned.

“In good time Miss Earl.”  He answered cheekily and went over and picked up her bag, putting it on the bed beside her.

“Unpack.”  It was one small word.  But it was filled with so much meaning.  She looked at the space he’d cleared in his wardrobe, and the two drawers and felt tears coming on that she didn’t understand.  He watched her closely, gauging her response, testing the waters carefully.  Rae was strangely elated by this small moment between them, this one word of his.  She was going to fill those drawers with her clothes quite happily; Finn would end up regretting giving her space in his wardrobe when she took it over with her clothes.  But Rae couldn’t unpack right now; she had taken two of Finn’s videos and hidden them in her bag with the intention of making him watch them with her in the future.  She decided to deflect and got up, putting her arms around his neck, kissing him passionately. 

“I wanna fuck.”  She grinned, “Then we can fill up my drawers later, ok?”  He narrowed his eyes, not sure what this meant, but more than willing to do as she wished.  He grabbed her bag and put it on the floor and as he turned around she pushed him down onto the bed, whispering in is ear.

“You always bang on about what you’re gonna do to me… do you ever stop to imagine what I’m gonna do to you?” 

“I do.”  He answered with a seductive groan, “all the time.”  She kissed him deeply and Finn’s concerns quickly slipped from his mind as he focused on Rae’s luscious lips and her perfect body.  She straddled him and enjoyed the way his hands invariably found their way under her shirt.

Rae’s eyes strayed to Finn’s Polaroid camera on his shelves.  He’d already taken a few photographs of the two of them together; they both had one in their wallets.  But she was tempted to take some more photos.  Ones they couldn’t carry around with them. 

“How much film you got?”  She asked nodded at the Polaroid. 

“Um…”  Fin looked at her confused, “not that many in the machine, but there’s some spare film in me third drawer.”  Rae slowly got off him and he watched her, biting his bottom lip in frustration, his hands following her as she went, wanting to make her stay.  She went to his drawers and opened the third one.

“You got plenty of spares.”  She grinned and turned to him, her hand reaching over to the camera.  She brought some spare film with her as she walked back to him, looking at the camera.  Finn started to grin expectantly; he thought he might know what she was planning.  She straddled him and his hands went straight to her hips.  She held the camera up, pointed at him and he grinned, waiting for her to take a photo.  She ground her hips into his slightly and he groaned appreciatively, his hands gripping her tighter. 

“I’m going to take some photos of you.”  She said softly, “Now I want you to imagine the sort of things you used to think about when you masturbated thinking about me.”  She said softly, “think about how you ached to touch me.”  She watched desire flood his eyes.  “Think about how you imagined your cock sliding into my cunt.”  She snapped a photo of him with a truly lusty look on his face and put the photo on the bedside table.  “Now I want you to think about what you look like fucking me.”  Finn grinned up at her, his hands travelling to her breasts and gently cupping them.  She was still particular about her breasts being squeezed, so he didn’t do it, especially not her left one.  But her hand dropped to his hand on her left breast and squeezed herself through his hand.  He grinned and gently squeezed both of her tits harder and she moaned happily. 

“Have you got a clear image of the way you look fucking me?”  He nodded.  “Now imagine that’s Phil.”  A look of rage came over his face and she snapped a photo, again putting it on the bedside table as he looked at her with confusion and irritation. 

“The fuck Rae?”  He asked almost calmly.

“You’re kinda sexy when you’re angry.”  She shrugged, “I wanted a photo of it.”  He picked his back teeth with is tongue and looked at her in disbelief, shaking his head at the nerve of her. 

“Right, so that’s the game we’re playing, is it?”  He readied himself for what she was going to do to him. 

“No.”  She grinned.  “I am gonna take pictures of you.”  She took another of him as he looked at her with a mixture of desire, amusement and confusion.  “And I’ll even let you take some of me.”

“Oh yeah?”  He asked, his interest peaked.  “What kind of photos?”

“Of you or of me?”  She teased.

“Of you.”  His eyes dropped to her mouth.

“You can take…” Rae considered what to say, “Ten photos of me.”  She said softly.

“Ten.”  He repeated.

“And they can be of whatever you want.”  She put her finger over his mouth when he went to speak, “Except for this one rule,” she said softly, “None of them can be photos we could show our parents.”   A dirty grin crept over his face and he nodded slowly.

“Ten?”  He shook his head, “Forty.”  He countered.  Rae laughed and looked up at the ceiling.

“What do I get in return?”  She asked.

“Forty o’ me.”  He said as if it were obvious.

“Oh Finn…”  She grinned, “You’re not understanding how this works.”  She ground her hips again and he closed his eyes, keeping the desire down while they haggled, “I’m going to take as many photos of you as I want.  And you’ll take ten o’ me.”

“Well that’s not fair.”  His brows creased in frustration, but he still smiled in admiration of her.

“I know.”  She nodded and took a photo of his frustrated face.  She took the picture out of the front of the camera as it came out and put it on the bedside table with the others.  “So unless you’ve got something to offer in return…”

“I’ll go down.  Forty photos.”

“You’ll be going down anyway.  Like you could stop yourself.”  She laughed and he knew she was right.  “Try something else.”  He bit his bottom lip and dug his fingers into her hips harder as his mind raced for an answer to get what he wanted. 

“I’ll give you a real hard spanking.”  He breathed, hoping this was the thing that would work.  He saw the look on her face change and felt his insides tremble with anticipation.

“Oooh.”  Her voice was desirous and filled with admiration with the hand he’d played.  She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Forty photos.”  He continued.

“Fifteen.”  She conceded.  Finn chuckled.  He had her now. 

“You’re a dirty bitch.”  He said in a guttural tone and she nodded her head, “You’re not gonna risk not getting a hard spanking by insulting me with an offer like that.”  She bit her bottom lip and groaned in appreciation.

“Twenty.  Final offer.”  She looked at the triumph on his face and added, “But it has to be good.”

“How about I give you a nice hard smack on that arse for every photo I get to take of you?”

“Alright.”  She almost whimpered.  She didn’t know why, but she so loved spanking, and he did it so rarely.  She could already feel her cunt aching for the way his hand hitting her bare arse made her insides tingle.  “But one of the photos has to be of how red you made me arse.”  She added.

“Then you’re gonna have to add another photo.”  He said immutably. 

“Twenty one.”  She allowed.

“Twenty one.”  He whispered.  Then looked her up and down.  “Give me some more photos and I can be real rough like you like it.”  He tried to bargain some more and Rae felt her insides tremble.  Since the thing with Saul their experimentation had slowed right down.  The most kinky they’d gotten had been in the ocean, when there had been the possibility of people hearing her cum.  He’d been gentle with her, carefully giving her space and time.  She knew that she still wasn’t over what had happened with Saul, sometimes when she was alone in her room for more than a few moments her mind would flashback to the moment with terrifying clarity.  But when she was with Finn everything was different, she was safe.  She wanted their sex life to continue as it had been before; filled with exploration, and they’d only just started to explore the rougher side of sex in earnest.  She bit her bottom lip.

“Will you pull my hair?”  She asked, unsure if she wanted him to. 

“Do you want me to?”  Rae hesitated to reply.  Saul had pulled her hair hard and it had hurt in a way that was not in any way sexy; it had actually been terrifying.  When Finn had done it, it had been beautifully sexual and wonderfully perverse and it had turned her on.  She wanted to capture that again so she slowly nodded her head.  He caught the hint of unsureness and made a mental note to follow her lead on that but gave her a dirty grin. 

“Do it.”  She said throatily and his hand reached up to her head and pulled her hair gently.  She closed her eyes, a strange kind of tentative look on her face.  But Rae felt nothing but a warm glow in her stomach.  It was Finn.  It was ok because it was Finn.

“Harder.”  She sighed lustily and he obliged watching her melt into an almost submissive state. 

“I’m done haggling Rae.  Forty photos or nothing.”  He said firmly and she groaned.  He tugged her hair harder pulling her head down towards his.  “Forty.”  She grinned lustily.

“Thirty.”  She gasped as he pulled a little harder.  She could see his eyes carefully gauging her responses.  “Thirty!”  She repeated.

“Don’t think I’m messing with you girl.”  He pulled her hair much harder and she gasped.

“Thirty-five!”  She breathed, her eyes alight. 

“Is that the way it’s gonna be?” 

“Yes.”  She breathed slowly.  Finn pulled her off him and pushed her down under him, holding her wrists above her head with one hand.  The other ran down her body and into her underpants.  He slipped a finger inside of her and fingered her for long enough to start her groaning.  And then he stopped.

“Forty.”  He said, “Or nothing.”  He got up and went to the other side of the room, leaning on his table, folding his arms and looking at her.  She laid on the bed watching him.

“Thirty five.”  She shot at him.  Finn knew he only had about 100 shots of film, so he knew there was an upward limit on what he could demand, and he wanted her to take a lot of photos too.

“Forty five, and you’ll beg me to come back to bed.”  Finn countered.  But Rae was having none of it.  She lifted her pelvis and slid her pants off slowly, revelling in the way Finn’s eyes watched her hungrily.  She spread her legs widely and started to masturbate.  Finn’s jaw dropped at how confident she was getting, how stubborn she was. 

“Twenty five.”  She groaned, “And you’ll beg to be allowed to touch me.”  Finn so desperately wanted to take a photo of her right now.  His hands twitched and he looked at the Polaroid camera.  He’d never even touched her when she was masturbating, now he had the chance to touch her and to photograph her.  He bit the inside of his mouth, trying to make himself hold out, but she groaned throatily.

“Alright!”  He caved in and she laughed triumphantly. 

“Beg.”  She ordered as she kept masturbating, her eyes on his.

“Please let me touch you.”  He asked lustily.  “Please…?”  She nodded slowly and he approached the bed, his hands reaching out and touching her legs.  She kept one hand on her cunt, with the other she took a photo of him as he watched her, he was biting his bottom lip, his eyes filled with desire and awe.  He looked up at her face and reached for the camera.  He knelt at her feet and took a photo, feeling a deep sense of satisfaction. 

“Only twenty four left.”  She grinned as she stopped masturbating and reached her arms out for him.

Now that he had the picture he put the camera down and held back, his eyes on her, while he considered his options.

“Forty.”  He said again, “or nothing.”  He jumped up and went back to the other side of the room, pleased with the way her jaw dropped.

“You dirty cheat!”  She glared at him as he started to slowly undress.  She took her own top off and unhooked her bra and knelt on the bed.  She raised her hands up and tousled her hair like the woman in Juggs magazine that looked a little like her; the similarity was not lost on Finn and he watched her hungrily as she cocked her pelvis forward, imitating the photo almost perfectly, she just needed a Nirvana shirt.  He bit his bottom lip and took his pants off, never taking his eyes off her. 

“Be thankful I didn’t say fifty and take the offer.”  He warned.  “And I owe you a smack girl.”  She grinned and bit her bottom lip.  Rae thought she might have a way to break this power struggle and, taking the camera, she stood up and walked to the end of the bed, she turned away from him, flicking her hair and bent over seductively, presenting him with her arse. 

“Thirty.  If you want the camera…”  She stood there, bent over, her hands on the footrest, her back arched lavishly.  She felt herself standing on her tiptoes to try and push her arse even more up.  She heard him sigh with desire.  And without warning felt a hard slap crash down on her arse.  She gasped loudly, her whole body tingling with delight. 

“Fifty and you give me the camera now.  Or you don’t get any more spanking.”  She looked over her shoulder at him, her body aching for him, but determined not to give in.

“Thirty and I give you the camera.”  She held it out to him but he shook his head.  She turned and gave him such a devious grin that he knew she had something planned.  She sunk to her knees and he groaned before she’d even touched him.  She slid her mouth over his cock, holding the camera out to the side she took a photo and Finn groaned loudly.  He put a hand on the back of her head and she pulled back, a long trail of saliva between her mouth and the head of his cock made him almost beg for her to suck him again.  She gave him a sinuous smile and held up the camera to him.

“My offer still stands.  Take it before I make it twenty photos.”  She licked the head of his cock and he slowly shook his head. 

“Fifty.  And I fuck your throat like it’s your cunt, and you’ll thank me for it.”  She looked up at him, shocked at what he’d said but deeply turned on.  He had been gambling when he said that, worrying that he’d pushed her like for rough sex too far.  But it looked like it had paid off.  He watched her hand slip between her thighs, gently rubbing herself.  He made himself stand his ground.  She groaned, not sure why she was so turned on by what he’d said.  Not sure if she really wanted him to do that to her.  And understanding that he had gambled to try and win this haggle and knowing he was already winning; ten had been her starting number, now she was considering pushing up to forty for something she wasn’t sure she’d like, but that she just had to try. 

“Thirty photos, and I tie you up and make you beg and scream for me.”  Finn smiled.  He did like it when she was in charge; when she made it hurt a little.  But he wanted at least forty photos.  He wouldn’t back down on this. 

“Fifty, and I tie you up girl.”  He said commandingly.  She stopped herself from whimpering at the thought instead took his cock into her throat as deep as she could and he groaned his hand going to the back of her head again.  She put her hands over his hand and made him push her harder onto his cock, she heard him make a throaty sort of moan she hadn’t heard before.  He had been pretty rough during blow jobs before, but never as rough as he had just implied, and she could tell that part of him wanted to try it too.  He thrust into her mouth slowly, his hand on the back of her head holding her in place.  She put her hands on his hips and sped him up, testing how hard and fast she could take it, her eyes were already watering and her gag reflex was threatening to kick in.  He put his other hand on the back of her head, his fingers curling through her hair and started to fuck a little harder, that throaty groan escaping his mouth again, his stomach shivering with desire. 

And she stopped him, pulling of his cock, saliva once again pulling between her mouth and the tip.  She liked it.  Put she put on a cool demeanour, wanting to win this.  She wouldn’t go higher than forty photos, even though he was demanding fifty. 

“Thirty five, and I’ll let you do whatever you want to me.”  A strange light came into his eyes.  And she worried that she’d gone too far even for her own sense of adventure.  She had a feeling that Finn knew a lot more about sex and had a lot wilder fantasies than her. 

“Whatever I want?”  He took in an appreciative breath.  “You sure about that?” 

“I get my spanking?”  She asked and he nodded, “it’ll be pretty rough?”

“Looks like it.”  He answered with a predatory look in his eye.  “But I’ll stop if you tell me to.”  He added firmly. 

“And you want to be rough… you’re not just doing it cos I started this?” 

“Sometimes Rae, I do wanna do things to you that aren’t entirely acceptable in polite society.”  He grinned with that sadism she’d seen reserved only for Phillip in the past.  Rae felt her cunt tingling. 

“You gonna hurt me a little bit?”  She had no idea that she’d be so turned on by the idea that he might hurt her.  “Maybe a lot?”  She added with a grin. 

“Won’t be nothing you can’t handle.”  The predator was making his presence known, and for Finn, the fact that she seemed to enjoy this part of him was incredibly enticing.  Finn enjoyed that sometimes she deliberately provoked this part of him.  He enjoyed that most of the time they fucked or made love.  But sometimes she stirred the hornet’s nest…

“Alright.”  She said softly.

“I’ll drop to forty photos.”  He took her hair in his hand and pulled it hard, putting her face to his cock, her mouth opening in anticipation, “and I’ll give you what you want.”

“Forty photos.”  She agreed and he plunged his cock into her mouth roughly.  Rae gagged loudly and he groaned as he shoved his cock deeper into her throat and fucked her mouth harder than he ever had before.  She held the camera up to him, her eyes watering profusely, her lungs desperate for air.  He took a photo; his cock buried deep in her throat, his hand roughly pulling her hair.  He let her grab some air and then pushed the entire length of his cock into her throat.

“But let’s be honest Rae.”  He whispered with that sadistic look in his eyes; she realised that whatever he was about to say, it meant that he’d truly won this haggle.  “Who’s gonna be keeping count?”  He took another photo and handed the camera back to her.  She held the camera out and took several shots as he fucked her mouth hard.  The camera ran out of film and he stopped, leaving her gasping for air and took the camera to put more film in it.  Finn laid on the bed.

“Come here.”  He motioned for her to come to him and then motioned to his cock.  He wasn’t done with her mouth.  “Suck me.”  Rae knelt between his thighs and licked the length of his cock seductively, her eyes never leaving his.  He took several photos of her while she sucked his cock.  “Now what am I gonna do with you?”  He grinned.  “Anything I want…”  Rae felt her stomach clench in anticipation.  “Bend over the bed again.”  Rae stood up and bent over the bed.  “Put your hands on the bed, and don’t take them off without my permission.”  She put her hands on the mattress feeling her insides churning with excitement as Finn got up.  “So that’s forty innit?”  He asked and Rae slowly nodded her head terrified that it was too much for her to take.  His hand slapped her arse hard and she groaned in pleasure.

“You can go harder than that.”  She admonished.

“Oh I’m going to.”  He answered dangerously, “This is just the warm up.”  Rae gasped loudly as his hand crashed down again, “I wouldn’t wanna disappoint my girl.”  The next smack was discernibly harder and Rae groaned loudly.  By the time he’d counted out twenty hard hits on her arse, he was putting in quite a lot of force, the last few making him grunt and she had buried her face in the bed and was groaning loudly.  It was exquisitely painful and pleasurable at the same time.  And she was so desperate for him to fuck her.  He stopped at twenty, panting from the effort, but pleased with the result; her arse was beautifully red.  He took a photo and shook it slowly watching her heaving with desire.  He threw the photo to her and she looked at the redness of her arse and groaned. 

“You want me to fuck you don’t you?”  He asked cockily.

“Please.”  She could barely breathe the word. 

“I’m not gonna fuck you.”  She whimpered and he chuckled, enjoying this power.  He ran his fingers down her arse crack, stopping at her arsehole and noticed the way her breath stopped.  “Anything I want…” He watched as her face snapped around to his, her eyes wide and scared and he took a photo of her.  He laughed and she hit him again. 

“Why d’you tease me like that?”

“Why d’you make it so fun to tease you like that?”  He chortled happily, “Consider it payback for Phil.”  And she shook her head at him, but he let his fingers easily slide down to her wet pussy and she was aching for him to fuck her hard.  “You’re so fucking wet.”  He groaned happily and slid two fingers inside of her, he took a photo of his fingers deep inside of her.  Rae kept her hands on the bed and turned her face forward again, biting her bottom lip as she felt his fingers moving in and out of her.  She wanted his cock, but this was a good start.  But he stopped and laid down on the bed.  She kept her hands on the bed and watched him as he settled himself. 

“Now come sit on face girl.”  Rae blushed and kept her hands on the bed.  “I want your cunt on my face now.”  He repeated as he watched her not moving she looked down at her hands and back up at him.  She saw by the look in his eyes that he knew he was putting her in a no win situation.  “Don’t make me tell you a third time.”  Rae bit her bottom lip hard, deciding what to do.  She took her hands of the bed and immediately he had grabbed her hair and yanked her head down to his cock, she opened her mouth and let him bury his cock deep in her throat.  He fucked her throat hard, thrusting up from the bed and holding her face still as she leaned over the bed.  She gagged and her eyes watered furiously, but he kept going until her lungs felt like they’d burst.  Then he let her breathe.

“I told you not to take your hands off the bed.”  He said with a small sadistic smile.  She quickly crawled up his body and knelt on either side of his head.

“You also told me not to make you tell me three times.”  She said as she lowered her cunt onto his face.  He handed her up the camera and happily lapped at her sopping pussy. She gasped in pleasure, the camera forgotten momentarily, as she rolled her head back.  But then she remembered and she took a photo of herself, the camera held high above her head, angling down her body, her body tense with impending orgasm.  She looked at the first photo to make sure the angle was good.  She could see her face, her eyes alight with sex and saw a fierce beauty in herself as she looked down her body, her large breasts round and perfect.  And there, between her thighs was the top of Finn’s head popping out.  She took some close ups of the action, of his tongue lapping at her and then as orgasm came closer she raised the camera up again, barely noticing as her other hand rose and stated to gently squeeze her left breast, Finn’s fingers digging into her arse perfectly.  She groaned loudly as the orgasm rocked her body and looked straight at the camera taking dozens of photos of herself coming.  And then his hand was reefing her hair again and pulling her off him.  She was till groaning from her orgasm, her whole body tingling.  He turned her over and roughly lifted her hips up.

“Arse up head down.”  He ordered and Rae instantly obeyed.  He put a hand on the back of her head.  “Your face stays buried in this bed.”  He said calmly, authoritatively, “Cos now I’m really gonna make you scream.  And I don’t want the neighbours to call the police.”  Rae turned her face into the mattress just as his hand slammed down onto her arse again, as hard as the hardest he’d gone last time.  She cried out in pleasure and pain.  But before she’d had chance to register the last hit there was another, and then another.  He did ten like this and she was stunned by the brutal force of them. 

“Turn your head so I can see your face.”  He ordered and she did.  “Alright?”  He asked, panting from the force of his blows.

“Yes.”  She whispered lustily.  He grinned happily at how turned on she was by this. 

“You got a choice for your last ten.”  He told her, “another ten like that.”  He said, “Maybe harder.” He saw her eyes register that he actually could go harder and felt a thrill go up his spine, “or ten not quite as hard while I’m fucking you.” 

“Both.”  She answered firmly and with no hesitation. 

“You’re not gonna be able to sit tomorrow girl.”  He warned, worry creeping into his mind.

“Both.”  She insisted immutably.  “Both Finn.”  She repeated.  “I want both.”

“Well I don’t like to let my girl down.”  He whispered to her and she grinned happily, “Put your face back in the mattress.”  He ordered and she did without hesitation.  Finn’s hands were hurting a little from the spanking he’d given her, but she loved it, and he loved that she loved it.  He clenched his hand for a minute and then flattened it out and put even more force behind it, she cried out with that delicious mixture of pleasure and pain and he chucked, carefully counting out ten and marvelling at the deep red colour her arse was turning.  As soon as he was done, he knelt behind her and took a photo, he threw it to her and she looked at the colour and groaned happily. 

“Put your hands behind you back.”  He ordered her and she put her face back into the mattress, as she laced her hands behind her back.  “Do not move your hands.”  He reached over to his top drawer and took an old school tie out and tied her hands behind her back.  Rae felt a thrill of excitement tingle in her pussy as she tested her bonds and realised that there was absolutely no way she could get out of them.  He slid his fingers down her crack, lingering again on her arsehole and she stopped breathing, unable to turn to look at him she simply waited to see what he’d do, she felt his cock sliding into her cunt, his fingertip on her anus and felt excitement and fear mingle in the pit of her belly.  She understood that anal penetration had become the thing he threatened her with to give her a thrill of fear, to heighten her excitement.  She liked that.  She could afford to like that because she trusted him so implicitly to never do anything she didn’t want.  She came loudly as these thoughts raced through her mind.  He laughed at how quickly she’d come.

“You dirty bitch!”  He exclaimed as he felt her cunt tighten around his cock only after a few thrusts.  He loved how turned on she was, how wet she was.  For her part, Rae liked being called a dirty bitch, but only when they were fucking like this.  In fact, he could certainly call her worse things right now and she’d probably like that too.  He took several photos of his cock sliding in and out of her cunt, and of her tied wrists.  Then he put the camera down and set to fucking her as hard as he could, interspersing the thrusts with hard smacks on the sides of her arse.  He heard her groaning loudly, and felt her cunt tighten around him at least another two times, but he wasn’t paying close attention to her orgasms, more to his own growing need to come.  He pulled her by her hair, and tied wrists, the muscles in his arms straining, he was still not back to full strength, but he kept pulling her up until she was almost upright, her back arched almost painfully, and listened to her happy groans of pleasure, as he slammed into her roughly.  He could cum at any moment, but he wasn’t done with her yet.  He withdrew and got off the bed, changing the film in the camera and looking at all the photos littering the floor he grinned and took several of her bound and kneeling on the bed.  Then he roughly rolled her onto her back, her arms pinned beneath her and raised her legs so that they were over his shoulders, he leaned on her and fucked her hard, watching her eyes roll back into her head as she came again, he took a photo of her as she came and several of her as she gave him angry, hungry looks; she wanted to touch him while he was fucking her so hard.  He knew she wanted to rake her nails down his back and he loved the ache in her eyes to touch him.  He took a lot of photos of her while she was in that wild state of desire, his cock pumping in and out of her.  He let her legs drop and kneeled up, wanting to take more photos of his cock sliding into her.

‘I gotta touch you.”  She finally begged and he shook his head and kept taking photos.  “Let me touch you.”  Her begging and the view of his cock pumping into her cunt, was pushing him too close to the edge of orgasm, and he decided he wanted to leap off that cliff.  He withdrew and pulled her by the ankle to the edge of the bed.

“Kneel.”  He told her and she slipped off the bed onto her knees, struggling wildly with her tied hands, desperately trying to get untied.  “Alright?’  He asked again and she nodded angrily but kept struggling.  He didn’t wait for any other sign from her but slammed his cock into her throat again it didn’t take too many thrust to get him close and he pulled out of her mouth.  “Open your mouth.”  He ordered, the camera ready to take as many photos as he could as he came messily all over her face.  It was a big load, even by his standards.  And he was pleased with the way the photos looked; there was a good amount in her mouth and her cheeks were covered too, some of it had landed on her forehead and in her hair.  He took a photo of her mouth full of his cum.

“You know what to do.”  He said softly and she swallowed immediately, he groaned and took another photo of her, this time with an empty mouth.  He pulled her up by the hair and put her back on the bed, her hands underneath her again, kneeling on the floor between her legs and burying his face in her cunt.  Rae gasped with pleasure as he licked and fingered her.  She had his cum all over her face, she could taste his cum on her breath, and she was tied, her arse still singing with pain and she was coming so easily, and so loudly as he ate her.  He took photos of her as she came, his eyes peaking up over her pubic hair to aim well.  He crawled between her thighs and looked at her face.

“The next time you play with fire girl, I’m gonna tie you up for the whole thing.  Alright?”  She nodded, biting her bottom lip excitedly.  “You alright?”  She nodded and he gently rolled her onto her side and untied her.  She put her fingers up to her face and felt his cum there, he snapped a photo and she smiled at the camera as she slowly licked his cum of her fingers.  He reached over the bed and handed her his shirt and she wiped her face, her eyes on him. 

“What?”  He asked cheekily.

“I was s’posed to be in charge of the camera sex.”  She answered and he chuckled.

“Well you can be next time ok?” 

“Alright.”  She said as if she were angry at him and he laughed and pulled her into his arms kissing her deeply. 

“I still don’t know how you swallow that shit.”  He said when he tasted his cum on her tongue.  He pulled a face at the taste of it but then smiled lustfully, “but I’m so stoked you do.”

“I quite like swallowing.”  She answered with a shrug and he groaned.

“I will never get tired of that fact.”  He looked her up and down and took her hands into his examining her wrists.  She knew that while he liked the rough stuff, he didn’t want to really hurt her, and she had a feeling that this tenderness would be a usual thing afterwards.  “Let’s have a look at your arse then.”  He said and she got up, but before she turned around she looked at him sternly.

“No sorry’s.” She reminded him, already feeling that it would probably bruise.  She turned and heard a sharp intake of air from Finn.

“Aye, that’ll bruise.”  He said tightly, his fingers gently touched her warm flash.  “Right, I’ll get some ice.”  He got up from sitting on his heels to standing in one smooth movement and gently pulled Rae into his arms, kissing her tenderly.  “You will tell me if-”

“Enough!”  She hit his arm hard and he gritted his teeth at her.

“I love you!”  He returned, “I just wanna make sure.”

“I’m fine!”  She retorted.  “I’ll have tea as well.”  She nodded towards the door and he nodded before trotting off downstairs.  The first thing Rae did when he was gone was retrieve the two videos from her bag and put them in her second drawer.  She grabbed her bag and put some pants in the drawer over the top of them in order to hide them.  She was still unpacking her things when Finn came back up, he stopped in the doorway and watched her, a content smile on his face.  She hadn’t seen him yet and she was sorting through her bag and putting things in the drawer thoughtfully organising them.  She had a pile on the side that was for hanging and as she put another dress on the pile she looked over and saw him with tea and an ice pack, smiling at her.  She grinned back at him.

“Unpacking.”  She said and continued.  He crossed the room and put her tea on top of the dresser and hugged her from behind, kissing her neck, feeling the chain around her neck on his lips.  He stepped back and put the icepack on her buttocks, standing there holding it for her as she kept unpacking, taking sips from her tea and talking about music.  When she walked across the room to hang her clothes, Finn followed closely, keeping the icepack on her arse, listening to her voice and wanting to make love to her.  When she’d finished unpacking, she started to pick up all the photos, looking at them as she went, Finn enjoying them too. 

“You look incredible when you cum.”  He whispered to her, and she had to agree. 

“We don’t have one of your face when you cum.”  She said as she finished picking them all up.  He guided her to the bed and handed her the camera.  She looked at it.

“There’s only a partial story in those photos.”  He said softly, “that was fucking.  Hard.”  He kissed her tenderly, “Now I’m gonna make love to you, alright?”

“Aye.”  She kissed his lips slowly, their tongues gliding against each other’s sensuously.

“Let’s take some photos of that too.”  Rae nodded her head happily and laid down on the bed, he crawled between her thighs.

“I love you Finn.”  She breathed and took a photo of the look he got when she said that. 

“I love you Mrs Nelson.” 

She didn’t take many photos of their love making, she was too focused on the feeling of touching him, of being with him, of their bodies moving together in time, but the ones she got were stunningly beautiful.  And she did manage to get his face when he came, and even he had to admit that he looked incredible.

 

 

***

 

 

_Dear Diary_

_Life has taken on this strange pattern of waiting._

_Waiting for news on Izzy._

_Waiting to be able to see Liam._

_Waiting for Saul to reappear or be caught._

_Finn and I seem to be clinging to each other in an ocean of waiting.  We’ve created our own little island where we find peace and comfort and joy even, while we wait._

_Oh, he just said my name in his sleep again._

_Oh no… this one’s a nightmare not a dream._

 

Rae bent and put her lips to his ear.

“I’m here with you Finn.”  She whispered, “I’m safe, you’re safe.”  He visibly calmed and his fingers reached out for her and rested on her thigh.

Rae looked out into his room, the bedside lamp on, the clock telling her it was 2am, her diary open in her lap. 

 

_But even our island has a poisoned well at its centre._

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Wild is the Wind’ by David Bowie _

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbpMpRq6DV4&feature=kp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbpMpRq6DV4&feature=kp)

 

“I always thought we’d go horse riding in the Scottish highlands.”  He kept his mouth as close to her ear as he could manage and whispered to her.  “I seen the way you looked at those horses at the Easter show when we was kids.”  He squeezed her hand slightly.  “I never done it afore, but I thought I’d figure it out.”  It was the nights that killed Chop the most, the place would be dark and isolated, and he hadn’t left this room for far too long.  “And I was thinking that when we was in Italy, I’d go and check out where the pope lives.  Ask him why he thinks it a sin that I make love to you.  I don’t care about a little piece o’ paper that says we’re married, when in me heart we’re forever.  That’s what matter.”  Chop reflected that there were many good reasons that he was a lapsed Catholic, It broke his mother’s heart that he didn’t go to church, but his father didn’t care and most of his siblings didn’t go either.  He hadn’t prayed much in his life, but these past few weeks had seen prayer return to him as if it were a life vest in an open ocean at night.  Not the old Catholic mantras he’d been taught; no it was endless pleading that she’d be alright that filled his prayers in these nights.  “I thought we’d take our kids around Ireland.  I got family there.”  He looked down at her thin fingers, “And we’d have to stop granpa from telling ‘em gruesome war stories, cos they used to give me nightmares.  And we both know that old fucker’s gonna live forever, so he’ll be around to terrorise our kids alright.”  He smiled sadly.  “I thought we’d have sex on the trans-Siberian.”  He admitted, “I know you never thought I’d wanna travel much… and I don’t but… but that’d be pretty cool.”  His body was stiff and exhausted, but he would only give out when she did.  Until then he held on with the scraps of energy he had left.  “I wanted to buy one of them historical houses and do it up nice.  I’d add a sewing room for you so you could make your dresses and stuff.  But I guess you probably want something bigger than a single room for your dreams.”  He took a deep breath, “And I’ll do everything I can to give that to you.  A big factory making all your designs.  Selling them all around the world.  I’ll even go to bloody fashion shows if I have to Izzy.”  He stroked her hand gently, “It’s been too many weeks now, Iz.  You really do need to wake up now.  Not just those little flutter of the eyes.  I mean right proper awake.  The doctor says you’re improving, says that you been healing and getting well, but I don’t see it, cos you won’t wake up.  So you gotta make it real clear for stupid ol’ Chop and open up your eyes for me.”  He raised his head, his eyes closed, hoping that this time… this would be the time that he’d open his eyes and see her looking at him.  He opened his eyes and saw her pale eyelids still closed and felt that old familiar despair grip at him. 

“I love you Iz.”  He said clearly, “And I’m here with you till the end girl.”  He touched her face, the feeding tube in her mouth limiting his ability to stroke her cheek.  “But I want that end to be a hundred years from now.  Not now.”  He shook his head, “not now Izzy.”  His voice grew stronger, “I forbid it.”  He squeezed her hand, “D’you hear me girl?  I forbid it.”

 

 

 

 

_‘Justify My Love’ by Madonna_

[ _https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np_Y740aReI &feature=kp_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np_Y740aReI&feature=kp)

 

Rae looked at the bruises that poked out the sides of her underwear on her buttocks in the mirror while she waited for Janice to come back with the ‘one size fits all’ skirt she had been talking about.  Rae stood in nothing but her red underwear, she had just bought it, her mother had wanted them to go out and buy things together; Rae thought she was trying to bond with her again, but when she’d had to go up a cup size her mother had just shrugged and told her that happiness makes women fat.  Rae pushed that thought out of her mind and looked at the red underwear. 

Finn had never seen it; she was going to be showing it to him today for the first time, in an extremely public and extremely provocative way.  Rae felt perfectly fine wearing nothing but her underwear in front of Janice; it was Janice, lover of the female form.  But she was nervous about what would be happening in about an hour. 

She looked at her arse again.

_The bruises aren’t as bad as Finn thought they’d be._

_And not as bad as I wanted ‘em to be._

_I been worried that that makes me a sick person; that I want Finn to sometimes leave a mark on me.  Not all the time, mind.  Just every now and then.  I like that most of the time he touches me like I’m a goddess and like he worships me… or like he lusts after me so much he has to have me now, that’s good too!  I like that he loves making me cum and I like that he’s considerate and caring as a lover… but sometimes I just want him to use me for his own gratification.  And I want him to leave a mark when he does it that reminds me for days after what he did.  That reminds me that I belong to him when he does that; like property.  I don’t want to be his property all the time; I don’t think I’d feel good if it were all the time, I like being worshipped by him too much… but just sometimes… sometimes I like the way it feels to be his object._

_Oh I worry that I’m sick._

_I did talk to Kester about it._

_I told him that Finn had left bruises on me at my request.  He worried that I was trying to relive what had happened to me with Saul, apparently, some women who are so traumatised by their assaults will do that sometimes… But I told him we’d done it before that too and he changed his tune.  Gave me a talk about consent and the ‘spectrum of human sexuality,’ which actually did make me feel a bit better._

_I just know that most people would judge me._

_Although yester when I went to sit and I couldn’t properly sit, Archie gave me a look that said he completely knew what was going on.  And Arch gave Finn a look, but Finn just came on all innocent with his expression.  It were dead sexy; this secret me and Finn have got, and Archie suspecting.  Oh Archie, I understand you and Tom perfectly._

_I do feel better knowing that there are other people that are similar to me.  But there is one thing I don’t like about what Finn and me are doing… he’s got too much of the power.  I don’t want to be his docile little play thing.  Well, not all the time.  I like being his object sometimes; to use and abuse as he wants.  But I want to do that to him too.  I wonder if he’ll let me?  If he’ll like it?_

_I have a feeling he will because he told me that to him sex is always good as long as I’m enjoying it.  And I’d enjoy that.  A lot._

_I know Finn talked to Kester as well, I think he worried that he were like Saul cos he left bruises on me._

_But the bruises Saul left made me painfully relive what happened every time I saw ‘em.  These bruises left by Finn… they remind me that I can trust him enough to do what I said and no more._

_I love that he did this to me when I asked him to.  And then made love to me straight after.  I love that since then we’ve made love so many times and had a few quickies too that were nice and hard and fast.  I like that we won’t do something like this again until I rile him up probably.  Or maybe he’ll start it next time?  Either way, I like that it’ll be a while until we do it again because it makes it more dirty that it only happens every now and then._

_Go’ I am a dirty bitch!_

Rae turned and looked at her body in the mirror.  She remembered when she first went to see Kester, she wouldn’t even look in the mirror fully clothed.  Now she was standing here, in her underwear eyeing off how good that deep red satin lingerie looked against her pale skin, with her dark hair tumbling down her breasts.  She tried sweeping all of her hair to one side so that the other breast was left uncovered by her hair, the silky red cup more visible, her hard nipple poking through the flimsy material. 

Janice bustled back in with the sheer, white skirt.

“Oh I like your hair like that!”  She played with the curls for a moment, tussling them even more.  “You are a sexy vixen!”  Janice grinned, “Your mother will never let you down here again if she finds out.  And Finn might never forgive me.”  She grinned and then shrugged, “But if you’re willing to do it, why wouldn’t we show you off?”  She handed Rae the skirt and Rae slipped it on easily, the elastic waist band fitting her lower waist perfectly, the sheer material draping down her thighs, the red underwear still visible through the skirt. 

“There, that hides the bruises.”  Janice said happily, “but you can still see your form.”  She got up and started to bustle about the studio.  She hadn’t asked Rae how she’d gotten the bruises, just asked her if she wanted to cover them or not.  She was so grateful for Janice and her non-assumptive nature.  Rae went to the middle of the room, where she knew she’d be modelling and sat on the floor, leaning back onto her elbows and extending her neck out so that her hair flowed like a brown ocean of chocolate from her head straight to the floor.  She raised her knees and crossed one leg over the other, pointing the toe gently and raising the leg upward slightly to create a long line for her legs, like Janice had suggested.  The skirt fell off her legs and pulled in her lap, the material draping perfectly.  She had agreed to do three poses: one reclined, one sitting and one standing.  Janice turned and looked at her momentarily.

“Oh that’s perfect.”  She drawled, “Will you be able to hold it.”

“Aye.”  Rae said and Janice gave a little clap of excitement. 

“They’ll be here in a few minutes, so you should just sit comfortably till they arrive.”  Rae felt her first moment of trepidation.  She didn’t even know how many people were in this art class, nor who any of them were.  Save for Finn.  Janice had been teaching him to draw at home, but now that Rae was finally modelling for Janice’s class like she had agreed to, Finn was coming in to the studio for the first time to be part of the class that got to draw her.  She knew that Janice and Finn were going to move onto oil paints after this, but first, he was going to start with charcoals, a medium he felt fairly comfortable with. 

Rae grinned as she thought about the way she imagined Finn would look when he saw her like this.  It would be worth all the fear she felt about being seen by so many people, she looked around at all the work stations Janice had set up; easily 30 people were going to be here.  Drawing or painting her.  The easels set up with large canvases were somewhat intimidating.

“How are you feeling?”  Janice asked.

“Nervous.”  Rae admitted.  She sat on the floor cross legged and looked over at the mirror at the beautiful make up Janice had done for her. 

“It’ll help if you don’t look at any of them.”  Janice nodded, “trust me I know; I’ve done nude live modelling!”

“Really?”  Janice nodded shyly.

“It was for art!”  She laughed and Rae laughed with her.  A student walked in and Rae’s heart dropped out of her chest.  It was a student from school, a girl she didn’t know the name of.  And older man walked in behind her and went straight to an easel.

_Oh shit!_

_Why didn’t I think that kids from school might be doing this class?_

The girl looked at her and smiled reassuringly and Rae returned a tight lipped smile and looked up at the ceiling and decided she just wouldn’t look at any more of the students.  Janice had pointed out where she was going to make Finn sit, so she turned her eyes to that spot and got herself into her pose; she was not going to move until it was time to change poses, and she was not going to look at any of the other people in the room. 

 

 

Several students were already in the room when he entered, looking down at his art book.  They’d all been told last week that there would be a live model this week, and everyone had been quite keen for the experience.  His excitement for this opportunity had been muted.  His mood had been low for a while now.  But nothing could really keep him down, he was a generally happy person.  But lately things had been much harder.  He looked up at the model and stopped dead in his tracks.

It was Rae. 

His eyes crawled up her body hungrily, he took in everything, the creaminess of her exposed skin, the length of her stunning legs, her beautiful hair flowing across the floor, her nipples pressing against the red satin of her bra. 

Phillip swallowed hard and knew that he simply couldn’t give up on her.  He knew that she loved Finn; she’d told him.  But it could be trauma talking, and even love isn’t enough to save a shaky relationship, and given what a prick Finns seemed to be, it was likely that they were having some troubles.  How could he give up on such perfection?  He knew he should, he knew she was with someone, he knew he was just going to get hurt over and over again.  But he had to keep trying. 

“Oh you’re a stubborn bastard Phil.” He muttered to himself and decided to turn around and leave.  Given his feelings for her, it felt wrong to paint her; it felt like he was intruding on her privacy.  But Janice was here and had ushered him to his work desk before he’d even had chance to quietly protest; he didn’t want Rae to know he’d been there.  He hid behind his canvas for her, wanting to bring her no shame or shyness. 

Rae had been keeping her eyes on the ceiling, flicking them down to Finn’s spot now and then, waiting for him to appear.  She could hear people murmuring gently and the scratch of pencils on paper, people had already begun.  She had no idea that Phillip sat to her right, trying to remain objective and take her in to paint her, rather than take her in as a man deeply in love. 

She was looking at Finn’s spot when she saw Mike, or ‘hot Mike’ as Chloe, Izzy and herself called him when the boys weren’t around walk in and sit in the seat next to Finn’s.  He opened up a roll with some battered looking pastels and then took a deep breath and looked up at her just as Finn took residence in the work station beside him.  Rae saw Mike’s eyes crawl over her and then turn to Finn, Finn hadn’t yet looked; he was preparing his materials as professionally as he could, his palms feeling sweaty.  He’d seen Mike in the foyer outside and felt his heart drop; he hadn’t realised that people from school would be in this class.  Especially not Mike.  Rae fancied Mike a little.  They’d walked into the class together, both not looking at the model, but instead going straight to their allocated workstations; there was a seating plan pinned on the wall outside. 

“Isn’t that Rae?”  He asked Finn, a tone of awe that even Rae could hear in his hushed whisper from where she was. 

“Aye.”  Finn looked at him from the corner of his eyes, before slowly raising his eyes to look at her.  His jaw dropped as he took her in. 

“She’s fucking hot.”  Mike breathed as he shook his head.

“I know.”  Finn agreed almost breathlessly as he took her in.

“I wouldn’t let my girl do this.”  Mike turned his eyes to Finn and saw the look of surprise and desire on his face.

“Aye but you try stopping Rae from doing anything she sets her mind to.”  He grinned, “It’s what I love about her.”  Most of the people in the room had heard the exchange, Rae felt a blush on her cheeks, but she kept her eyes on Finn.  Phil was amazed that Finn was here, that Finn was even slightly interested in something like this, that he saw her like this and didn’t bound over to her like a Neanderthal and demand that she cover up and be his property.  When Phil looked around the corner of his canvas at Finn, he saw a look of admiration and adoration on his face.  And very primal desire. 

Finn had so many emotions rampaging through him.  Mostly he was so proud of her for overcoming her fears and doing this.  Part of him didn’t want people to see her looking this sexual because he wanted that to be all his, but part of him wanted to show her off a little too.  He was deeply aroused and imagined himself ravishing her in front of all these people while they drew it. 

 _I love you._  He mouthed the words to her and a slight smile touched the corners of her mouth.  Finn drank her in and slowly sat down, picking up the charcoal he began to draw her.  She watched him work for some time, and then she heard a murmur behind her and she tuned in her ears to hear one of the artist commenting that she was a beautiful model and another agreed.  Rae felt herself blushing, furiously uncomfortable but strangely aroused as everyone took their time to take her in; to draw her.  She kept her eyes on Finn, his white shirt was getting covered in charcoal dust; he looked so sexy when he concentrated like this. 

After 30 minutes Janice brought over a stool and Rae sat on it, leaning back on the backrest, her hands tousling her hair naturally, her legs crossed, the skirt pulled up to the knee.  After months of playing the theatre game ‘Marionettes’ with Elsa, who had no sympathy for aching limbs and cared only for physical control on a stage, she was finding holding poses for extended times quite easy.  She heard everyone change pages or canvases and saw Janice settle into her position to draw her.  Rae turned her eyes back to Finn.  She gave a small enigmatic smile and proceeded to eye fuck Finn every time he looked up at her.  The room became charged with their electricity, filled with their latent desire.  Rae wondered how this was affecting the art being created, but that thought made her became more lustful, desperately wanting to fuck Finn as the time went by. 

When another 30 minutes had passed and it was time to do the standing pose, Rae was certain she’d left a wet patch on the stool.  She stood, one foot slightly in front of the other, her shoulders thrown back, her breasts thrust out and upwards, her pelvis gently tilted forward, her head raised.  She looked every bit the fierce warrior Finn knew her to be; a fierce warrior that would fuck you to death.  The sex was rippling from her as she continued to eye fuck Finn.  For his part, Finn’s cock was throbbing in his pants and he was going to have Rae the minute he could. 

“Holy fuck.”  Mike breathed, but Rae heard him; the room was silent.  “Finn mate, I know you’ll punch the fuck outta me for this, and I respect that, but I so wanna fuck your girl.”  He whispered.

“You touch her without her permission, and you’ll have me to answer to.”  Finn returned in a low voice.  Rae didn’t grin at Finn, even though she could.  Instead she tried to make him think of all the things they could do together after this class finished.  She tried to make him think about peeling this underwear off her. 

“Fair enough.”  Mike returned. 

Phillip was in a mess.  All the months he’d liked Rae and grown to love her, his sexual attraction to her had stayed relatively innocent; he wanted to have sex with her of course, but he had always imagined impassioned love making.  Right now his whole body was desperate to fuck her as hard as he could.  He could almost hear Finn’s voice telling him that he was a Neanderthal too.  His mind flashed the most lewd images of them together and it was all he could do to not groan with desire.  He was almost thankful when the class ended 30 minutes later.  Thankful but miserable that it had ended.  He watched her go to the corner, where her bag was and pull out a red dress that she slipped over her head, Janice helping with the zip as Rae slipped the skirt off.  He watched her turn to Finn, the red dress flaring out and showing him her upper thighs.  Janice turned to her class as they packed up.

“We’ll finish your sketches next week.”  Finn closed his art book as Janice spoke.  Rae came up to him and whispered in his ear.

“Take me somewhere and fuck me.”  Mike heard what she’d said and looked away grinning and jealous.  Rae and Finn were the first to leave, Rae leading Finn by the hand as Janice continued to talk, the eyes of everyone in the class watched them leave. 

“Get in the back seat o’ the car.”  Finn said lustfully as soon as they got to the car park, even though the car was parked in a far off corner.  When they got to the car, Finn unlocked the door and Rae opened the back door but he stopped her and stripped her dress off her in the middle of the car park.  She looked around shocked as Finn climbed in the back seat.  She got in and closed the door, Finn already had his cock out and he roughly pulled her on top of him immediately.  He pushed aside her silky underwear and slid inside of her, his hands playing with the silky cups of her bra.

“You’re so fucking sexy.”  He breathed as he thrust into her, making the car rock. 

Everyone from the class saw that car rocking as they got into their own cars to go home.  Janice came out last and shook her head at the rocking car, thankful she had her own car here and wasn’t depending on a lift home.  She looked down at her sketchbook and grinned.  Time to go home and work on fleshing out her sketches; that had been a truly wonderful session of art. 

 

 

 

 

_‘Kool Thing’ by Sonic Youth_

[ _https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDTSUwIZdMk &feature=kp_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDTSUwIZdMk&feature=kp)

 

Finn pulled his art book out of Rae’s line of vision as she tried to peek a look.

“You can’t look yet, they’re not finished.”  He told her and she gave him a sulky, frustrated look. 

“Janice had finished hers.”  Rae said grumpily.

“Yeah well Janice is a fucking professional.  And those were just the line sketches.  She gonna paint you from those.”

“So those weren’t finished?”  Rae thought about the incredible drawings of herself Janice had produced.  Rae looked powerful, sexual and just outright beautiful in the drawings.  The whole experience had been overwhelmingly positive for Rae, and Finn had noticed that as the wether warmed up, she was wearing less clothing.  Even in public.  Today she wore a knee length black skirt that flowed and moved around her hips seductively when she walked and a Radiohead t-shirt in a woman’s size rather than a man’s size.  Which meant it fit snugly to her breasts and stomach and made Finn unable to concentrate if he looked too much.  He looked down at her red converse, her bare legs sticking out of them.  He was somewhat sorry to see the tights disappear, he did so enjoy tearing them.  But he much preferred her bare legs.  And the tights would make a reappearance in autumn. 

It was a warm Saturday morning in early May, his 18th birthday was in a few days’ time on the 9th and his dad had planned a nice dinner at a restaurant for that.  Finn had insisted with the gang that they hold off doing any celebrations for his birthday until Izzy was out of hospital and could come with them.  Given that there was still no word on Izzy’s condition, there was a tension amongst the gang that would have destroyed any chance of a fun party anyway.  Archie had felt the same way about his birthday when it had rolled around in late April and was planning on doing something for it when things settled down.  Finn had no problem waiting until the June mid-term break or later if needed.  He wanted his 18th birthday celebrations to be huge and that meant that a school break was required, and he and Archie had talked about sharing the celebration since their birthdays were close to each other.  Besides Izzy’s presence was required for a good time to be had.  He saw Rae eyeing him lustily and grinned as he kept working.  Rae watched him drawing, a smudge of charcoal on the side of his nose, his fingers blackened, the right hand from holding the charcoal, the left from smudging the lines carefully.  Rae looked over to the open bedroom door and decided she might need to close it.  She looked back at Finn, sitting in jeans, shirtless, looking lovingly at his drawing. 

“Have we got time for a quickie?” She asked and saw his face shot up to hers, a huge horny grin on his face, he nodded.

“No you don’t.”  Janice answered from the hallway, “Come on.”  Finn looked up at his ceiling and groaned with frustration and Rae shrugged at him.

“Gotta go.”  She walked over to him, her hands going to his bare chest as she kissed him passionately.  He breathed her in, but kept his dirty hands to himself, even as the itched to touch her. 

“You be alright?”  He asked, always concerned for her.

“It’s a doctor appointment.”  She reminded him.

“And you’re sure you don’t want me to go?”

“It’s a boring girl thing.”  She reassured him.

“But it’s a you thing.  So it’s a me thing.”  He put his hand up to her face, his fingers millimetres from her skin, not touching cos he didn’t want to leave charcoal on her skin. 

“I’ll tell you all about it when I get back, alright?”  She kissed him again and he sighed deeply, aching for her. 

“I love you.”  He said urgently to her and she kissed him again.

“I love you.”  She was smiling happily when she turned from him, Finn watching the way the skirt moved across her arse when she walked out.  He sighed lustily and then looked back down at his drawing; he intended to spend the time she was out with Janice finishing this first picture.  Then he’d start on the other two. 

Rae and Janice drove in to town, Janice cheerfully chatting about the gallery and the new artists she was discovering in the area; particularly ‘urban artists’ and seemed quite annoyed at the local council for some reason.  Rae listened to Janice as she complained about the graffiti clean ups happening around town and had no idea why she was so annoyed about it, but nodded anyway. 

“I’m thinking of getting one of the local urban artists to do an artwork on the side of the art centre you know.”  She finished her rant, “that’ll fuck them up!”  Rae grinned at Janice swearing.  “They can’t take that one down, because it’ll be a commissioned artwork that the South Kestevan local council paid for!” 

“You should do it.”  Rae encouraged her and Janice grinned.

“Might be pushing it, you know.  They pay my wages too.”

“I wouldn’t worry.  You’re brilliant at your job.”  Rae told her, “Everyone says the art centre is coming back to life now.  And lots of people are doing all the classes you started.”  Rae thought about how even her mum was thinking of doing the pottery classes offered by the centre, and she’d never shown any artistic inclination before.  And all the girls at school loved the street dance classes that Janice had gotten started, hiring out the massive dance studio room they had that had not been used in years.  She was starting ballet, contemporary and jazz classes in the next few weeks.  It had been quite a learning curve for Janice, to pick up a whole arts centre, not just a gallery.  But she had been doing an excellent job, and the whole of Stamford was buzzing about it.  Janice parked the car and reached into the back seat to pull out a drab grey cardigan to cover her delightful sky blue sundress.  Rae furrowed her brows at Janice but didn’t say anything as they headed out towards the doctor’s clinic.  Rae instantly noticed Janice’s different body language in public.  She kept her eyes down, her cardigan wrapped around her and hurried on to their location. 

“Janice what’s wrong?”  Rae asked and Janice shrugged.

“Nothing.”  She shook her head as she walked on, but she made an effort to slow down and raise her head more.  The moment she did she saw a flash of violet in a store window.  She stopped, Rae continuing to walk for a few steps before noticing.  Rae came back to her side and looked in the window, her breath catching when she saw the dress Janice was looking at.  This was a new store and Rae looked at the name painted in beautiful black calligraphy on the window: Curvy Girl Boutique.  Rae looked back in at the beautiful dress wondering if she could have it.  It was such a strange experience to look at an item of clothing and think that maybe she could have it, but the girl she was shopping with couldn’t.  She was so used shopping with Izzy and Chloe and the sizes stopping short of her size… this was so new to her.  She had to go in and look at the dress.  Janice followed her into the store.

“I love that dress.”  Janice whispered as she looked at the 1950’s vintage inspired dress, in a deep, yet vivid shade of violet.

“I’m sorry, but we don’t stock your size.”  A sale’s assistant said to Janice with a sympathetic look.  Janice nodded slowly that she understood.  Rae’s fingers touched the dress.

“It’s beautiful.” 

“We have your size.”  The assistant said, “And we do tailoring so we can fit it to you perfectly if you’d like?  We cater to the curvy girl’s every need.”  She looked at Rae with a huge grin and Rae looked back at the dress, so desperately wanting it.  She checked the price tag and winced; she couldn’t afford it.

“Unfortunately,” Rae said to the assistant, “I’m a curvy girl on a budget.”

“We do lay-by.”  Rae looked at the assistant and back at the dress.

“I have to have it.”  Rae grinned and Janice made a mental note to make a few payments for Rae in secret, so the dress would be paid off quicker. 

The correct size was in stock and it fitted her perfectly, she looked in the mirror in the change room and fell in love with the dress.  She was definitely going to put this on lay-by. 

Rae felt quite elated when she left the store, a lay-by docket folded in her purse and a few business cards to give her mum and Elsa and any other big girl she ever saw; she need this shop to remain open.

They got to the doctor just in time and were shown in to his office almost immediately.  Janice sat beside her with a reassuring smile. 

“How can I help you today?”  He asked Janice with a big smile.

“Oh we’re here for Rae.”  She looked at Rae and fretted about how nervous Rae looked.  The gynaecologist looked a little confused and looked down at his notes.

“It says that you’re here to get an IUD fitted?”  He asked incredulously.

“Aye.”  Rae nodded anxiously. 

“There’s not much point in getting an IUD if you’re not sexually active.”  He told her pragmatically. 

“Why would you think I’m not sexually active?”  Rae asked, her stomach sinking.  She felt suddenly too big for her clothes, the fitted t-shirt felt like a strait jacket suffocating her.  She looked down, wishing Janice wasn’t here to see this. 

“I’m sorry.  I just read on your file that you’re 16.”  He answered stiffly.

“17.”  Rae countered.”

“And the prefect age to be shagging your brains out.”  Janice added, her anger just barely under control.  She had caught the implication in what he’d said too. 

“Of course.”  His mouth drew into a tight smile, “What contraception are you currently using?”

“The pill.  But I keep forgetting to take it.”

“Have you considered condoms?”

“I won’t use them with Finn.”  She shook her head adamantly.  The doctor put on what he obviously thought was a sympathetic look.

“I understand.  A lot of young lads don’t like to use them, but-”

“He’d use them if I told him to.”  Rae was not in the mood for getting yet another lecture about contraception.  She was here to fix this problem once and for all, not be told all about the magic of condoms.

“Condoms protect you against sexually transmitted diseases whereas an IUD only protects against pregnancy.”

“I only need protection from pregnancy.”  Rae said resolutely. 

“A lot of young girls think that.  But a lot of young guys are fooling around a lot… it would be wiser if-”

“Not Finn.”  Rae answered simply.

“Look, she came here for an IUD, if you’re not willing to do that, we can go elsewhere.”  Janice said, clearly angry. 

“Of course I can do it.”  He answered, “I just have to make sure that it’s the right decision for Rae.”  He turned back to her, “if you’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”  Janice and Rae had talked long and deeply about her contraception options since that first conversation, and an IUD seemed perfect to her. 

“Alright, well let’s get on the bed.  Do a pap smear and have a look at your cervix.”  He said with a reassuring smile.

“Do you want me to go?”  Janice asked as Rae went to the bed.

“Please stay.”  Rae replied as the doctor closed the curtain around the bed.

“Just slip your underwear off and lie down.”  He said as he turned away from her to wash his hands.  “Is this your first gynaecological examination?”

“Yes.”  Rae felt butterflies in her stomach.  This was quite scary, and she wished she’d brought Finn along now; Janice had said she might be more comfortable with Finn, but this had seemed like a boring girl thing so she hadn’t wanted to subject him to it. 

“First pap smear then?”

“Aye.”  She tried to make her voice sound unafraid, and wished that Finn was there holding her hand.  The doctor turned back to her after he’d put some gloves on and showed her the instruments he’d be using. 

“This is a speculum.”  He showed her how it opened, “I’ll use this to open you up so I can use this spatula,” He held it up, “to just take a few cells from your cervix.  While I’m at it, I’ll have a quick look and see how we’ll insert the IUD.”  He put the speculum against her inner thigh, “How’s the temperature of it.”

“Alright.”  Rae said, terrified of how wide the thing could open up.

“No just relax, I’m not going to ask your vagina to do anything it can’t manage easily, ok?”  He slowly inserted the speculum into her and Rae had a strange sensation that it was wrong to have something inside of her if Finn wasn’t present.  She felt a strange pressure inside of herself that was uncomfortable, but not painful.  Then a strange scraping sensation at her core that made her shudder in not quite revulsion.  He put the spatula into a special container for the pathology lab and then he made a small clucking noise as he had a look at her cervix.  Rae looked up at the ceiling, clinging onto her skirt, feeling so weird about this whole experience.  The doctor closed and withdrew the speculum and removed his gloves before turning and leaving the curtained off area.

“You can get dressed now.”  He said softly as he returned to his desk.  Rae grabbed her underwear and pulled it on before heading back to her seat.  Her insides felt strange.  Janice gave her a sympathetic smile.

“Your cervix is quite small.”  He said as he wrote some notes, “If you want an IUD, we’ll have to organise a day surgery to get it in.”  He took out a few pamphlets and handed them to her, “after the first time, we should be able to thread it through the opening of the cervix easily enough for future IUDs, but this first time will be difficult with a cervix like yours.”  He continued to write notes and then looked up a schedule in his day planner, “when’s good for you Miss Earl?”  He turned to her an expectant look on his face.

“I dunno… I hadn’t thought it would take surgery.”

“It’s not really surgery the way you’re thinking of it.”  He said comfortingly, “you’ll be in and out in a day.  But the first opening isn’t until late June.”

“Alright.”  Rae answered, her stomach clenching in fear.  “Will I have to be knocked out?”

“Yes, but there’s no need to worry about that.”  He handed her some pamphlets and a card with the address and date of her day surgery and the associated costs and help she could receive for the cost.  “I’ll see you gain in June.”

 

 

“That was fucking weird!”  Rae said as her and Janice walked back down the street.

“Yeah pap smears are like that.”  Janice answered, “Welcome to the world of being a grown woman who is sexually active.”

“Well at least it’s done now.”

“Oh no, you get those every two years.”  Janice couldn’t help but laugh at the look on Rae’s face. 

“Go’ being a woman is shit.”  Rae shook her head.

“At least we can’t get nutted.”  Rae thought about the way Finn had looked when she’d accidentally kneed him in the nuts and nodded.

“But we got a lot of shit in that trade off.  I think we need to renegotiate the deal.”  Janice laughed, her hands folded across her chest protectively, but her face alight with mirth.  Rae couldn’t help but be struck by the change in her appearance in public. 

“Janice,” Rae said softly, “it’s a warm day.  Why are you wearing that cardi?”  Janice looked at her with a wry grin. 

“Remember when you first met me, you said I was beautiful?”  Rae nodded her head.  “Well there’s quite a downside to looking like you come from the pages of a soft porno mag.”  Janice looked down, “let me show you.”  She stood still and took off the huge cardigan, the beautiful, fitted sky blue sundress shining gorgeously in the sunlight.  Rae stood with her, not sure what she was supposed to be seeing.  But it only took a few moments for Rae to notice the substantial increase in male looks they were getting.  Rae noticed the eyes of almost every male she could see in the vicinity on Janice. 

“Bloody hell.”  She whispered as she saw the furtive glances of some men, the outright stares of others, and the downright perverse eye-fucking other guys were giving her. 

“It wouldn’t be so bad if it was all just the stolen glances.”  Janice said, “I kind of like the odd stolen glance.”  She said as she thought of Gary.  “It’s the constancy.”  She said softly, “and the assumption that because I look like this, I’m bang up for it.”  Janice sighed and looked around, “this has been pretty good though.”  She said with a soft smile, “no catcalls.”

“Hi Rae.”  Rae turned to see Elsa coming out of the store behind her, she was accompanied by a woman much shorter than Elsa’s statuesque height in those six inch knee high boots.  Rae noticed that Elsa was holding her hand and tried not to look too surprised.  Rae felt herself taking a closer look at Elsa’s girlfriend; she was short, curvy and had the most beautiful smile.  Her hair was reddish brown and her eyes were a deep brown with golden tinges, similar to her own eyes.  But it was the David Bowie shirt that she wore that Rae noticed the most, it looked like one from the 70s, and it was in mint condition.  She and Elsa had been shopping and Rae noticed a man standing behind them carrying numerous bags. 

“This is Lysa.”  Elsa did the introductions, not bothering to introduce the man carrying the bags, “This is Rae and?”

“Janice.”  Janice answered.

“I know Rae from school.”  Elsa explained to Lysa and she nodded and looked at Rae as Elsa continued, “I’ve known Lysa for years and years.”  Elsa told Rae, “Probably my closest friend.”  They shared a fond grin, filled with intimacy and love.  “So how’s everything going with you today Rae?”  Elsa was acutely aware that Rae was under a lot of pressure with Izzy, Liam and Saul, and she had no intention of letting Rae feel as though she didn’t have support. 

“I’m sorry,” Janice interrupted, “I just have to say,” She looked at Lysa, “Your eyebrows are impeccable.”  Lysa laughed a deep infectious chuckle and shook her head.

“I know!”  She replied and Rae felt sure that all the boys at school would be heartbroken to see the smitten look Elsa gave Lysa.  Rae turned her eyes to the guy carrying the bags, and noticed a leather collar around his neck.  She furrowed her eyebrows and took him in.  He was over 6 foot tall and had dark hair and delicious olive skin with large brown eyes.  Rae looked back at Elsa as Lysa and Janice swapped beauty tips, Elsa clearly not interested in this conversation, but politely listening nonetheless, her eyes on Lysa’s face. 

“I don’t have enough time to get manicures like that with the art centre needing so much of my time.”  Janice was saying and Elsa’s attention came back to the conversation. 

“You’re the new head of the art centre?”

“Yeah.”  Janice smiled shyly

“I teach performing arts at the school.”  Elsa said with a grin, “Can we have a quick chat about your theatre?” 

“Of course!”  Janice said excitedly.  Elsa held up a finger and turned to Lysa.

“D’you wanna head back to my place and prepare for Nick coming over?”  She stroked Lysa’s hair gently, “avoid a conversation you’ll find boring?”

“Don’t be too long.”  Lysa smiled, “I’m heading home tomorrow.”  They kissed and a guy catcalled them enthusiastically.  Both women, simultaneously flipped him the finger and continued kissing.  Rae heard a soft groan of desire from in the guy who was carrying their bags.  And wondered what kind of a relationship he had to Elsa and Lysa. 

“I would never be brave enough to give the finger to a guy that cat called me.”  Janice said softly and Rae shrugged watching as Elsa handed over the keys to her place to Lysa and then motioned for the guy carrying the bags to follow Lysa. 

“I imagine you get a lot of cat calls.”  Elsa said to Janice as she watched Lysa walking away.

“Yeah I get a few.”  Janice acknowledged as she put her cardigan back on.

“Just learn how to break a guy’s neck.  That’ll give you the confidence to deal with their shit.”  Janice laughed, slightly nervous around Elsa’s confidence and demeanour but Rae grinned.

“For real?”  Rae asked.

“I have been doing various martial arts and self-defence classes for over a decade.”  Elsa said.  “If you’ve got an arse like mine and you’re not willing to accept the mentality of ‘if it stick out I’m allowed to touch’ that so many wanker guys have, you gotta know how to hurt a man.  Badly.”

“Finn were trying to teach me self-defence.”  Rae said, suddenly feeling that she really needed to get back into those lessons; they hadn’t had one since Saul had attacked her.  She didn’t know that Finn had been holding off on them, not wanting to trigger any memories or flashbacks in her with the violence and grabs and holds.

“I suggest you continue.”  Elsa said honestly, “Where was he teaching you?”

“The boxing joint.” 

“Which one?’  Janice asked.

“There’s only one boxing joint in Stamford.”  Elsa smiled knowingly.  “Get Rhys to teach you, tell him I told you to see him, he’ll give you a discount.”

“You know Rhys?”  Rae asked surprised.

“In a manner of speaking.”  Elsa answered with a completely straight face that indicated to Rae that Elsa knew Rhys quite well; probably nakedly and horizontally well.  “You know him?”  Elsa returned.

“Not really.”  Rae said, “He’s Finn’s trainer.”

“Oh right.”  Elsa considered this, “he’s the best trainer they have there.”  Elsa took out a cigarette and lit it, “followed by Tom and then Jim.”  She blew out the smoke away from them, “the others they have are mediocre.  Don’t bother with anyone but Rhys, Tom or Jim.”

“Great, thanks for the advice.”  Rae said and Elsa gave her a fond smile.

“My pleasure Rae, let me know if you need anything right?”

“Yeah.”  Rae liked how much Elsa kept an eye out for her.  Elsa turned her eyes back to Janice.

“So the theatre at the centre, does it have raked seats?”

“Yes, and great acoustics for a small theatre.”  Janice answered honestly.

“How many seats?”

“150.”  Janice answered.

“What’s the backstage like?”

“Single change room, with a divider wall.  Green room, loading dock, decent flats and props storage area.”

“And the tech specs?”

“Full curtains, no fly.”  Elsa pulled a face and Janice shared the face, “but it does have a full scrim, projector, fully operational bio-booth-”

“Proper sound deck and lights?”  Elsa interrupted.

“The lights are magnificent Elsa.  We’ve got full floods, a dozen spots, a full range of gels, gobos… We’ve even got lasers.”  Elsa made a small noise of desire.  Rae hadn’t understood all of the conversation, but she knew that what the centre had was far better than the tiny stage in their school hall that they were using. 

“Do you think that the school could come up with some sort of deal for using the theatre for our shows?”

“OF course!”  Janice answered, “The theatre doesn’t currently get used at all.”  She looked depressed by that, “it was next on my to do list; getting people into it.”

“We could pay…” Elsa considered, “not a lot though.”

“Well I need to hire a part time stage director for the place… I could always give the school free usage for 5 hours a week if you were willing to put in about 5 hours a week to getting that theatre back in order.”  A smile crept across Elsa’s face.  “We could accumulate those hours so you could do a run of shows…”

“I would love to do that.”  Elsa said, her eyes alight with passion, “I haven’t run my own stage in years.  I have missed it!” 

“Well-”

“HEY FATTY – WHY DON’T YOU SUCK MY DICK!”  A guy was hanging out of the pub door across the road leering at Elsa.  Janice looked agape at him and Rae pulled a disgusted face at him.

“Sorry mate, my mouth’s too full of food to fit your tiny little dick in there.”  Elsa shot back.  Rae laughed and Janice looked stunned for a moment before she laughed too.  The drunk guy thought for a moment and laughed too before starting to stumble up the street, seemingly unsure as to what had just happened. 

“What do they think’s gonna happen when they say shit like that?”  Elsa asked them with a bemused tone.  “I’m suddenly going to say; ‘you’re right!  I should be sucking your dick.’  What a wanker.”  Elsa chuckled and Rae noticed a look of admiration in Janice’s eyes. 

_Join the club Janice!_

Elsa looked back at the drunk guy to make sure he wasn’t returning and then turned to Janice.

“We need to figure out the nuts and bolts of this deal.”  She said and Janice pulled a pen and paper out of her handbag.

“I’ll give you my number.”  Janice said as she started to write down her office and home number.  Rae looked around as they exchanged details and saw Kester walking up the sidewalk and smiled a hello when he saw them.  She watched him do a slight double take, his steps faltering as he clearly agonised about something.  Rae’s eyebrows furrowed, her concentration on the conversation about using the theatre for rehearsal times Elsa had just started with Janice wavering as she saw Kester look back over and then clearly make up his mind to come over.

_Oh fuck, what does he want?_

“Hi.”  Rae said when he got to them, Elsa and Janice stopped chatting and looked at them.

“Hi Rae.”  He said softly and then turned straight to Elsa.  “Hi Elsa.”  He looked down and crammed his hands in his pockets, “I was just wondering if you wanted to grab a coffee some time, maybe you could tell me more about why you hate therapists.” 

“I’m not really a coffee kind of a girl.”  She answered gently. 

“Alright vodka.”  He shot back and Rae saw Elsa stop herself smile as she looked away. 

“Aren’t you monogamous?”  Elsa said with a hint of derision, “Don’t you have a girlfriend?”  She looked at him as he nodded slowly, “Why would you ask a strange women to drink vodka with you?”

“Just a chat.”  Kester said, “I’m just interested in your mind.”  He added with a slight grin.

“Such a therapist.”  Elsa looked imperiously at him.

“I don’t think you need to be a therapist to be interested in someone’s mind.”  Kester countered.

“But you do need to be non-monogamous, or single to be interested in mine.”  Elsa answered, her bright red lips moving almost sexually.  Rae was delighted to see a flush of colour on Kester’s cheeks.  She’d never seen anyone be a match for Kester’s mind and this was something to behold.  He scratched his nose and looked down licking his lips.  He cleared his throat and looked back up at her.

“I think you pretend to be more sexual than you are to keep people at arm’s length and to keep control of the situation.”  Kester answered softly and Elsa chuckled delightedly.

“Oh look at him go.”  She chortled, “You’re cute when you try to understand me.”  Kester shot a quick, slightly embarrassed glance at Rae, but Rae shook her head in delight.  “I’m almost tempted by your offer.”  She breathed and Rae felt her own body responding to Elsa’s raw sexuality; she had no idea how Kester was holding up. 

“Of course you are.  You’d love an audience.”  Kester shot back and Elsa raised her eyes to the sky as she laughed. 

“Yes.”  She acknowledged, “But I don’t need you for that.” 

“No I don’t suppose you do.”  Kester agreed, “But you’d have someone really interested in that mind o’ yours not just that body.”  Rae couldn’t tell who was hitting more goals at this point, but she looked over at Janice, who seemed to be equally as intrigued by the conversation as she was.

“Oh but my mind is the most sexual part of me… it’d be cheating.”  Elsa said with a grin.  “On that sweet girlfriend of yours.”  Rae watched Kester’s eyes narrow as he considered this.

“If having a conversation with you is considered cheating… you’re doing it wrong.”  Elsa smiled appreciatively at his response. 

“Eight o’clock.”  She answered slowly, “at the Swan.”  Kester nodded, pleased with himself and looked at the other two women present.

“Nice to meet you.”  He said to Janice.  “See you Rae.”  Rae watched him leave and turned to Elsa.

“Don’t break him too much, I need him for therapy.”  Rae was only semi-joking and Elsa caught the tone in her voice.

“Don’t worry Rae; he’s at no risk from me.”  She shook her head and looked back at him as he disappeared into the crowds, “He’s more at risk from himself.”  She shrugged, “Bloody therapist.”  She muttered and turned back to Rae and Janice, to continue their plans for the theatre.

“Rae’s writing all the plays for you isn’t she?”  Janice asked.

“With Phil, yeah.”

“Maybe they should come look at the stage, get a feel for the space?”

“Great idea.”  Elsa answered, “I’ll organise a date for it!”

 

 

 

 

_ ‘A Warm Place’ by Nine Inch Nails _

[ _https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1vxJb6MQ34 &feature=kp_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1vxJb6MQ34&feature=kp)

 

Chloe stroked his hair slowly.  There were so many conflicting emotions in her that she really had no idea what to feel other than overwhelming sadness.  She kept trying to make herself speak.  Make herself tell him that she was sorry, that she wished that she had stuck it out and been there for him.  She felt conflicted about caring for him because of the way he had treated Rae, but she knew Rae wasn’t thinking about that right now.  Rae was with Finn as he parked the car, she had been adamant that she would visit, despite Finn’s misgivings. 

_How do I tell him that Rae doesn’t care about the things he did now?  How do I let him know that she only cares about him getting the love and friendship he needs and that she’s sorry it took this to remind her of who she really is: a beautiful soul that looks after everyone?_

_Finn and Archie had really wanted us to stay away.  But Rae and me, we know there’s a softness at your core Liam.  We’ve seen it.  We understand that you need us._

_Archie probably won’t come.  He don’t really know you outside of what happened with the punch._

_But Finn’ll come.  He’ll go wherever Rae goes.  He won’t like it, but he’s not the sort o’ guy to be a control freak.  I know you don’t like Finn, so I’m sorry that you’ll have to have him here, but he needs to stick around with Rae cos o’ Saul._

_What a mess these past few months have been.  I’m so sorry I let you suffer cos o’ that Liam._

_But how do I tell him how sorry I am?  I’m sorry I left you in prison overnight.  I’m sorry I just stopped talking to you after making you think we’d be friends._

_Open your mouth and tell him Chloe.  Tell him that you know you made him feel like shit.  You left him alone when he needed you._

“I’m so sorry Liam.”  She kissed his forehead softly.  Rae walked in and Finn stayed at the door.  His eyes fell on Liam and he slowly looked away; every fibre in him hated Liam, and he didn’t want to feel sympathy for someone that had so harmed Rae.  He understood that suicide was serious and it meant Liam was in a bad place, but his first loyalty would always be to Rae, and he found himself to be an extremely unforgiving man when it came to people hurting her, not surprisingly.  He stayed in the doorway, staring out the window, a fixed look on his face as he watched Rae from the corner of his eye. 

“Liam.”  Rae said softly, “What were you thinking…” She shook her head and took his hand.  “I’m so sorry I didn’t see that you was in trouble.”  Rae stroked his hair and Finn bit his bottom lip to stop himself from making an unimpressed noise.  Rae looked up at Chloe to see tears dripping from her eyes.  Chloe kept her eyes on Liam.

“This is my fault Rae.”  She said softly, “I led him to believe that we was friends, and then I abandoned him.”

“Cos I told you to.”  Rae countered, “This is not your fault.”  Finn had to stop himself from telling them that they both had good reason to cut ties with Liam.  He drummed his fingers against his thighs in irritation.

“Rae, if only we’d seen that he needed help.”  Finn again had to stop himself from pointing out that Liam saw Kester and if a trained professional missed it, how could they see it.

“I let him down.”  Rae answered in a small voice.

“We both did.”  Chloe shared the blame with Rae and Finn had to physically stop himself from rolling his eyes; he felt like the effort might give him a brain haemorrhage. 

“It’s no one’s fault.”  Finn soothed through gritted teeth.  The two girls kept their eyes on Liam, Rae appreciating Finn’s words and Chloe dismissing them. 

“Where’s his family?”  Rae asked astounded.

“Eli was here earlier.”  Chloe said, “No one knows where his mum is.”

“And his dad’s been gone for a while.”  Rae nodded her head and sighed.  “I wonder if Kester knows.”

“He was here earlier too.”  Chloe said.

“How’s he taking it?”  Rae asked curiously, wondering if Kester hitting on Elsa was part of his grief response.  She’d learned that grief and other strong emotions could make you act strangely. 

“He’s quite upset.”  Chloe said, “But keeping it together.” 

“How was Eli?”

“She’s devastated Rae.  She adores Liam.”

“I know.”  Rae stroked Liam’s hair again “He was always good to Eli.”  Rae remembered, “Always stuck up for her, never lost his patience with her or said a cross word to her.  He loved her so much.”

“What are we gonna do?”  Chloe asked despondently, “Izzy…? Liam…?”  Her eyes strayed up to Rae, “Saul and Ian and Ben…?”  Finn looked over at the girls, his heart heavy and his guts churning, he saw Rae walk around the bed to Chloe, taking her into her arms comfortingly and Chloe sunk into Rae’s arms gratefully. 

“I dunno.”  She said slowly, “We keep waiting I guess.”  Rae stroked Chloe’s hair gently, “and try to heal ourselves Chlo.” 

 

 

 

 

_‘Sex Type Thing’ by Stone Temple Pilots_

[ _https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hhu-OyHqZM_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hhu-OyHqZM)

Finn punched the bag violently, his shirt wet with sweat, his feet bare, he liked to box with bare feet and Rhys sometimes indulged him in this.  Sweat dripped from his face and he kept punching as hard as he could, enjoying the fact that he had been given the clear to start boxing hard from Dr Kraus.  Technically, the sex he’d had with Rae the other day wasn’t allowed by Dr Kraus’ schedule – he was supposed to have been on medium level activities.  But who could resist fucking Rae hard when she was being such a tease?  And he knew that he was fine to do it.  He could feel his body returning to full strength.  He could feel that he was pretty much finished mending; not quite there, but almost.  He only had a few liver function tests left, and so far everything had been ticking along ahead of Dr Kraus’ schedule.  Behind Finn’s schedule, but there was only so much he could do after such a severe injury; his body just hadn’t been capable of healing any quicker.  Rhys braced the bag and encouraged Finn to hit harder.

Archie wandered in with Rae and Chloe, Finn had asked him to pick them up so he could get a workout in before they started.  Rae had insisted they start self-defence classes again, had even requested Rhys specifically and Finn had been delighted by that.  She’d insisted that Chloe come along too; mobilising everyone against the inertia of waiting as much as she could. 

Archie saw Tom and jogged over to him with a big grin to start his training session.  Rae and Chloe watched him go chatting to each other about how good looking Tom was. 

They started to meander across the gym, Rae’s eyes on Finn as he punched the bag, running through a series of different punches. 

_Why is he so sexy?_

_Why?_

_How are my ovaries supposed to survive the onslaught of delicious manliness?_

_Look at the way is body moves… and his muscles…_

Rae’s face turned to that tragic look of horniness and Chloe rolled her eyes but grinned.  She found that she could look at Finn more objectively now.  Her feelings for him were slowly fading and as they did, she realised that perhaps she really had loved the idea of him.  She knew that she had almost worshipped him as the ideal, so it made sense that her feelings would get mixed up.  She couldn’t pretend that she didn’t still have an ache inside for him.  But it wasn’t the same as it once had been.  She was more at peace with her feelings now; and the ache inside of her felt less focused on Finn and more focused on the desire to move forward and find love again… or even just sex would be nice.  With someone that wasn’t a horrible human being.  She didn’t know if she needed a relationship, but she wanted what Rae and Izzy had; sex that wasn’t just emotionally traumatising.  She was starting to feel that old desire in the pit of her stomach.  Not that she had any desire yet to actually do anything about that feeling.  She just acknowledged she felt it; like Kester was teaching her, acknowledging how she felt was important.  Chloe looked over at Rae, she was still staring at Finn with that same face.

Finn stopped boxing when he saw them.  He straightened up out of his fighting stance and waved at Rae.  He used his teeth to take his gloves off and the girls saw him start to talk to the guy with him.

“You’re still not at full strength.”  Rhys said, unimpressed with Finn’s progress.  “You’re hitting the bag far too softly.  Might as well be making love to it.”

“I know.”  Finn was equally as unimpressed wanting that last 10% of healing to be done so he could be at full strength.  So he could add strength.

“You been skipping running too much, and your weight training is also suffering.”

“Gotta look after Rae.”  Finn said as he dropped the gloves into his bag.  Rhys turned his eyes to the girls that Finn was looking at and nodded that he understood how that would take time out from Finn’s rehabilitation schedule. 

“Nonetheless, you’ll have to try harder.”

“Aye.”  Finn agreed as he began un-taping his hands.

“So you said before you wanted to gain strength?”  Finn nodded and Rhys handed him a towel to wipe the sweat off his face.  “What’s your goal?”  Finn looked at Rhys and nodded toward Rae.

“How much do you think she weigh?”  Rhys evaluated Rae with his excellent eye for human bodies.

“About 90 kilos.  100 at most.”  Finn nodded, he’d thought that same.

“That’s my goal.”

“You want to be able to move your girl around, lift her?”  Finn nodded.

“How much muscle mass will I have to put on?  I kinda like my size now.” 

“That’s not a problem.”  Rhys replied, “Ever heard of Halil Mutlu?”  Finn shook his head.  “Won gold at the’96 Olympics in weightlifting.  He lifted three times his own weight above his head, Finn.  Fucker only weighs fifty something kilos.”  Finn raised his eyebrows. 

“That’s not bad.”  Finn marvelled.

“We just gotta build your core strength.”  Rhys grinned, up for the challenge and Finn nodded his agreement to whatever Rhys was planning.

“I’ll make time.”  Finn tried to figure out where he’d be fitting this in and watched Rae talking animatedly to Chloe. 

 

 

“Who’s that guy with Finn?”  Chloe asked.

“Dunno.”  Rae looked at him, “S’pose it’s probably Rhys.”

“He’s huge!”  Chloe said as if she were appalled at the size of him.  Rae nodded.

“But kinda sexy.”  She looked at Chloe, trying to see if her best mate was testing the waters with boys yet. 

“I s’pose.”  Chloe shrugged. 

“Not your type?”

“I don’t know if I got a type anymore.”  Chloe said looking tragically disturbed by that.  “I think my type is now officially, ‘a guy who’s not a jerk.’  Looks are nothing in comparison to a guy who’s not a wanker.”

“Ah wouldn’t it be nice?”  Chloe laughed at Rae’s response and slung an arm around her waist. 

“So I suppose he’s fit.  But is he a jerk or no?”  Chloe grinned, “That’s where it’s at.”

“Well Finn likes him.”

“Well that’s a good start.”  Chloe agreed, “One point for Rhys.”

“If in fact that is Rhys.”  Rae reminded her.

“Ah!  A strike against him.”  Rae gave Chloe a quizzical look, “Too mysterious with his identity.”  Chloe explained and Rae chuckled.  They watched Finn and the huge black man chatting and then they looked over and started to walk towards them.  Rhys towered over Finn and looked to be carved from stone.  Except for his bright blue goatee and green nail polish he was a picture of discipline and hardness. 

“This is Rhys.”  Finn introduced him to Chloe and Rae.

“This is your trainer?”  Rae asked in suitable awe at Rhys’ appearance close up, “no wonder you’re so good.”  Finn raised his eyebrows at Rae as she stared at Rhys openly.  Rhys gave a wry smile and shook his head.

“Finn’s only as good as he pushes himself to be.”  Rhys answered seriously.  Rae had to stop herself from giggling; she was remembering Archie telling her about how serious Rhys was.

“This is Rae.”  Finn said with a fond grin, and Rhys cocked an eyebrow.

“Obviously.”  Finn pulled a face at him and watched the way he appraised Rae.

“I’m Chloe.”  Chloe’s eyes hadn’t left Rhys.  There was something reassuring in is calm, disciplined demeanour.  Finn saw a small smile touch the corner of Rhy’s mouth. 

“Nice to meet you both.”  He appraised Chloe for a moment and then turned his eyes back to Rae, figuring out what his course of action was going to be.  He could see their trepidation, could gauge how healthy and strong they were by the way they held themselves. 

“Depending on who you believe somewhere in between 1 in 10 and 1 in 3 women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime.”  Rhys said seriously, his eyes moving between the two girls, knowing that both of them had suffered sexual assault.  “I don’t know which figure is more right.  But I do know that I have not met a woman that hasn’t been abused by a man in some way.”  Rhys straightened his spine as he thought about this, hating the way it made him feel about his whole sex, “mental, emotional, verbal, physical, sexual abuse.”  He looked into the distance.  “You include it all and every single woman I have ever met has suffered abuse at the hands or mouths of men.  And I suspect that figure will hold true if you asked every woman on the planet.”  He turned his eyes to Rae and then Chloe.  “Now I don’t know why these figures are so high.  But what I do know is that women are not safe because of men.  And by and large, men are not taking responsibility for their actions.  That leaves women with very limited options.”  His mouth tightened, hating that this was a fact.  “In my view, learning proper self-defence is one of the better options.  Learn how and when to use your body as a weapon.  And beat the shit out of any fucker that doesn’t heed your ‘no.’ ”  He grinned broadly and Rae felt herself really liking Rhys. 

“That’s easy for you to say.”  Chloe answered defensively, “Look at the size o’ you.”  She looked him up and down.

“I weigh over double what you weigh.”  He acknowledged.  “But with the right training you could beat an assailant my size.”

“But not you?”  Chloe asked.

“No.  Not me.”  He looked her in the eye, “but you don’t have to worry about me.” 

“Why not you?”

“Because I’m training you and thus I’ll always be at least one step ahead of you.”

“Unless I get better that you.”  Chloe said with a strange tone.

“I hope you do.”  Rhys ginned, “in fact I look forward to it Chloe.”  He looked around the boxing joint, “but no one in Lincolnshire could teach you that.  Go to London though, and you’ll find some people better than me…”  He smiled and she smiled back, unable to stop herself. 

“Elsa said you were the best.”  Rae said softly and Rhys raised an eyebrow.  Finn looked at Rae surprised, and Chloe watched Rhys’s face closely. 

“Of course you know Ms Elsa.”  He grinned, “You’re from her school.”

“Ms Elsa?”  Finn asked him with a look of incredulity.

“I could call her Ms King, but you know how she hates her last name.”  Rhys smiled, “and that woman most definitely requires a title.  So Ms Elsa it is.” 

“How do you know Elsa?”  Chloe asked.

“We first met in London.”  Rhys said.  “She got me out of some very deep shit.  I owe her my life.”  He looked Rae up and down, “She told you to tell me to teach you?”

“Something like that.”  Rhys smiled at her response. 

“These self-defence lessons are free.”  He said firmly and Finn started to protest but Rhys waved him off.  “Elsa rarely calls in a favour.  The lessons are free.” 

“Thank you.”  Rae said warmly and he nodded slowly. 

“Right, so let’s start at your most vulnerable spot.”  He said to Rae and Chloe, “What part of you do you fear being attacked the most?  What’s the spot you feel you can defend the least?”  He watched both girls put their hands to their throats unconsciously.

“My throat.”  Rae felt the scar along her neck and turned her eyes to Finn.  Chloe nodded in agreement. 

“Let’s start there then.”  He knew from Finn that Rae’s throat hat been cut, a shallow wound, but on the neck, even a shallow wound was dangerous.  Armed with this knowledge he turned to Chloe, not wanting to intimidate Rae.

“Will you be my partner?”  He asked her and she nodded, slightly scared; she’d been hoping she’d be Rae’s partner.  Chloe came and stood next to him and Rae went and stood next to Finn. 

“Right.”  Rhys said brusquely, his eyes on Rae, “imagine he grabs you by the throat, front on.”  He reached out for Chloe’s throat but she stepped back.

“No!”  She said before she had realised she was going to speak.  He turned his face to look at her, “I’m sorry!”  She frantically said, “I mean… I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s fine.”  His eyes re-appraised her.  Chloe wished she could read the look on his face.  “Your ‘no’ does not need and apology nor an explanation.”  He said calmly.  “Your ‘no’ stands on its own.  It is a complete sentence.”  He stood square on to her and saw her shrink visibly from him so he adjusted to stand more side on.  “If you don’t want to do this part that is more than alright.”  He said firmly, “The point of this training is to enforce that no one touches you without your permission.”  His voice resonated with Chloe, “even your instructor.”  She let out her held breath and shook her head.

“No, I wanna do it.”  She said suddenly, “I need to.”  She almost whispered.  Rhys nodded and slowly turned himself square on.  He saw the fear in her eyes but saw her stand her ground.  Rae and Finn watched as he taught Chloe alone now. 

“If he grabs you around your throat, front on.”  Rhys slowly raised his hand to her throat, nodding before he touched her, waiting for her to nod back.  After a pause she slowly nodded and he gently put his hand on her throat.  Chloe’s hands instantly shot up to his to pull him off and he let her remove his hand.  She shook her head.  Finn turned his eyes to Rae, who had her hand near her throat protectively, her eyebrows furrowed.  He wondered how she would do when it was her turn to do this exercise. 

“Maybe we can do the throat grabs another day?”  Finn suggested, “There’s a lot o’ ground to cover.”  Rhys turned his eyes to Finn and nodded thoughtfully.

“Agreed.”  Rhys answered, thinking he would have to plan his lessons carefully for these girls; they had both been deeply traumatised.

“No.”  Chloe insisted.

“No, we need to do this.”  Rae agreed.  Rhys turned his eyes to Finn and saw Finn shrug, not knowing what the best thing to do was either. 

“Would it be better to do throat grabs from behind?”

“From behind doesn’t bother me much.”  Chloe said honestly; all of Ian’s attack had been front on.  Ben’s too.

“Much worse for me.”  Rae piped in and Rhys and Finn shared another look.  But Chloe unexpectedly grabbed Rhys’s hand and put it on her throat.  She closed her eyes but saw Ian choking her in her mind’s eye, and had to open them, and she saw his hazel eyes looking at her empathetically, calmly, patiently.  She felt that his fingers were loose, not gripping her at all, he was just letting her put his hand wherever she wanted.  She shook as she held his hand at her throat for a moment longer, letting her heartbeat slowly lower.  He waited for her, making no sign that she was taking too long.  Rae looked on keenly, not sure if she’d be as brave as Chloe was when it was her turn. 

Slowly, Chloe lowered her hands, Rhys’s hand left on her throat, he nodded encouragingly and she smiled triumphantly when she finally got her hands to her side.

“If that fucker grabs my throat head on.”  Chloe said venomously, “How do I fuck him up Rhys?”

 

 

 

 

_‘Bad’ by U2_

[ _https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFG_YVpDd_s_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFG_YVpDd_s)

 

Rae still ached from this morning’s session with Rhys.  He was not a kind and generous trainer like Finn, who was a total softie when it came to her.  Rhys pushed her hard.  She could see why Finn and Elsa had wanted him to train her and Chloe though.  She understood more about her centre of gravity, the lines her body needed to make to support herself and her actions when hitting, and balance after just 10 minutes with Rhys than she had learned in her whole life.  But Rhys was uncompromising, patient, but demanding.  Whatever he told them he expected them to obey.  Rae was to jog more, Chloe was to take dancing up again: cardiovascular exercise that they both enjoyed.  No questions asked, just do it.  Finn was going to take her jogging every second morning now.  Rhys had told Chloe and her to increase their food intake because they were increasing their physical activity, and Rae hadn’t needed telling twice; she was starving after that workout and she was starting to understand how Finn could put away so much food.  Finn and Rhys had talked a long time about the food thing, Rae didn’t understand why Finn had taken Rhys off when they’d finished the session to talk about it, but she had noticed that he was piling her plate full of food.  She’d have to ask him about it.  She looked in the mirror and straightened her arm, tensing every muscle and pushing it through the air like Rhys had shown her, she saw the line her body made and saw the power in it; her whole body would support a punch thrown like this.  She grinned at her reflection feeling powerful.  That’s what Rhys’s discipline gave her; the feeling of real power within herself.  She pushed forward her other arm and saw that her body angle was different, wrong, she figured out how to correct herself in the mirror and felt quite triumphant when she could move both sides as equally well.  She grinned and grabbed the towel she’d dropped on the floor to do this mini practice, as Finn sauntered in from the bathroom.  He leaned against his door, a towel wrapped around his waist, watching Rae wrap the towel around her hair and sort through her bag for clothes.  He sighed deeply; he loved the way the sun looked across her naked body, but the curtains were always closed now.  Always.  Even if he opened them up, within minutes she’d closed them.  Finn closed the door as he pushed those thoughts away and laid down on the bed watching her put on underwear, the experience of watching her dress, being strangely erotic. 

_But not nearly as erotic as slowly undressing her and making very gentle love to her._

_Which is what I did._

_And it were brilliant._

_Being inside Rae is like… well there’s nothing like it._

Finn looked at the clock.

_About 25 minutes ago._

_I’ll never get tired of seeing her, or of touching her._

She hummed a tune under her breath as she found out some pants she wanted to wear.

_I’ll never get tired of that voice._

_Everything about her always seems to be brand new and an old favourite at the same time._

_How does she do that?_

“I like that dress.”  He said and she looked down at it, really seeing it for the first time. 

“Oh.”  She said suddenly disgusted.  It was the dress she’d worn when she’d lost her virginity to Liam.  She took it off and flung it to the ground.

“Why-”

“I don’t wanna wear it.”

“I can see.”  He said confused. 

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”  She sighed, knowing that they eventually would, “ok fine… that were the dress.”  She said softly and sorted through her bag.  She found another dress, similar in style but blue.

“That were the dress…?”  Finn gave her a confused look and then it suddenly crashed through his chest.  “Oh.”  He said as he felt the pain and rage rising in him.  He looked down at the dress. 

“You wanna throw it out?”

“Aye.  But mum’d kill me.”  She looked in his mirror as she dried her hair.  “It’s pretty new.”  She explained.  Finn looked back at the dress.

“Well you looked real beautiful in it.”  He tried, but he knew it would take more than that to undo the damage that had been inflicted upon her in that dress.

“It used to be one of me favourites.”  She looked down at the blue dress, “but I like this one too.”

“Aye, you look beautiful in blue too.  Brings out the little green fleck in your eyes.”  He grinned and Rae smiled feeling oddly beautiful and stunning. 

“I didn’t know you looked that closely at me.”

“Course I do.”  He noticed how pleased she was and revelled in her smiles, her happiness.  She sat down on the bed and looked down at him, lying in his towel, his hands behind his head. She was about to tell him how sexy he was when Janice knocked on the door. 

“You can come in.”  Finn said as reached up and gently tugged on Rae’s hair, she grinned at him as Janice popped her head around the door.

“They just called to say they’ll be here in about 10 minutes.”  She told them and spotted a seemingly empty glass on Finn’s bookshelves and went over to retrieve it.  “I’ll just take that downstairs.”

“No don’t!”  Finn jumped up and took the glass from her hand. 

“Ok…”  She said slowly as she looked from Finn to Rae.  Rae shrugged in response to her questioning face.  “I’ll just leave that with you then.”  She left the room gracefully and Rae turned to Finn the moment the door was closed.  He looked embarrassed as he looked down into the glass.  She walked over to him and put her hands over his, looking into the glass she saw a few small black specs at the bottom.  He looked up at her.

“It’s me mum’s letter.”  He looked back down at it.  Rae stroked his face gently, feeling that this letter had caused so much pain, she wished it was gone.

“You should give it back to your dad.  It belongs to him.” 

“He’s not gonna want a few pieces o’ ash.”

“Yeah he will.”  Rae kissed his lips gently and slowly took the glass from him, putting it on his table.  She held his face in between her hands.  “You have to let go of that letter.”  She whispered to him, “Not just the ash over there, but what was written in it, ok?”  Finn’s eyes flitted back over to the glass.

“But how?” 

“Dunno.”  She looked at the glass, “practice.” 

 

 

A few minutes later Finn and Rae walked into the kitchen to see Gary and Janice looking into the oven together, discussing the roast beef and deciding how much more time it needed. 

“I think you’re right Gary,” Janice was saying, “it’ll only be another 20 minutes, and it’ll be perfect.  Like all your food is.”

“Oh go on, Miss Harcourt.”  He blushed and skewered another part of the roast to see what colour the juices were.  “Your cooking is far better than mine.”  He added with a cheeky, dimpled grin. 

Finn sauntered into the kitchen and looked at them, glancing back at Rae, she shook her head as if to ask ‘who do they think they’re fooling?’

“Careful Janice he says stuff like that to all the pretty girls.”  Finn joked and his father shot him an unimpressed look before turning back with a grin to Janice. 

“Not all o’ them.”  He raised an eyebrow before standing up and closing the oven.  Janice blushed slightly, smiling happily and turned way, seeing Rae giving her that look she narrowed her eyes at her. 

“Da, can I have a word?”  Gary nodded and stayed in the kitchen while Janice turned to give him a quizzical look, seeing the glass in his hand.  “It’s fine, you can hang around.”  He told her and Janice sat with Rae at the kitchen table, all neatly set up for dinner that night.  Finn looked down at the glass, unable to speak he simply stood there staring at those small pieces of ash.  Gary looked down at the glass, attempting to understand what was going on with his son.  Finn squeezed the glass tightly and then handed it to his father. 

“That’s what’s left of mum’s letter.”  He said sadly.  Gary looked in the glass at the specs of ash.  Janice made a small sound of understanding and Rae took her hand, as much for her own comfort as Janice’s. 

Gary stared at the ash for a long time.  Finn standing before him, waiting for hash words, anger, sorrow, anything but this silence. 

Gary looked up at Finn and put his arms protectively around his shoulders.

“Oh my boy.”  He mumbled forlornly, “You shouldn’t have had to carry this.”  He leaned over to the kitchen sink and put on the tap.  He filled the glass with water and Rae saw Finn’s body heave with sorrow.  Janice squeezed Rae’s hand as they watched silently. 

Gary rinsed the glass and made sure all the ash went down the drain.  He turned to Finn.

“Your mother was more to me than that letter.  Don’t you think on burning it anymore alright?”  A tear fell from Finn’s eye as he looked down, “Listen to me son, your mother was more than the illness that took her away from us.”  He put his hands on Finn’s shoulders, “I was wrong to hold onto that letter.  I was holding onto the wrong stuff.”  He pulled Finn into a hug and Rae looked over at Janice, who was clearly very moved by what she had seen. 

“I wanna find her dad.”  Finn said softly and Gary nodded in response.

“Then we’ll find her.”  Gary hugged Finn and Rae turned her eyes to Janice, who was looking down thoughtfully.  Rae squeezed her hand and she looked up and gave Rae a sad smile.  Rae saw understanding in Janice’s eyes; the knowledge that she never really had had a chance with Nelson senior.  Rae had to sniff to keep herself under control and Gary cleared his throat as he turned to the table.

“D’you think it’ll pass inspection?”  Gary asked Rae.

“Looks great.”  She grinned trying to not show her sorrow for Janice.

“Will I pass inspection?”  Gary joked.

“Hmmm.”  Rae scrunched up her face in mock thought, “I don’t think so.”  He gave her a cheeky smile and continued his train of thought. 

“Right, the food’s all halal.”  He checked off his mental list, “the music is 80s pop.”  Finn pulled a face but Gary ignored it, “the ashtrays are out.”  He looked at Rae, “Anything I shouldn’t talk about?” 

“I think I should o’ had that talk with me mum, not you.” 

On cue there was a knock on the door.  Janice and Gary went out to the door but Finn dawdled with Rae. 

“You alright girl?”  He asked.

“I should be asking if you’re ok.”

“Bit emotional.”  He acknowledged.  “But I know you been dreading tonight.”

“Well you know me mum.”

“Aye I know your mum.”  He shook his head, “Now you got me dreading it!”  They chuckled secretly together. 

“Look Finn, tonight could go real bad…” Her tone suddenly serious.

“Whatever happens, you just remember I love you.”  He kissed her lips softly and she smiled, mystified as to how she managed to be lucky enough to have him. 

“I love you Finn Earl.”  She told him and he grinned at the way she used her surname and his first name.  “What are you grinning at?”

“Everything about you is mint.”  He replied cheerily and took her hand, leading her to the lounge room. 

When Rae came in she gave her mum a determined look; they had been arguing nonstop since Linda had decided to start curtailing Rae’s time with Finn.  Every time Linda tried to do it, Rae would take off to Finn’s house.  A situation Linda was not impressed with.  Rae went over and took Aiesha from her mother as Gary welcomed Linda and Karim into his home.  He settled them down with a glass of non-alcoholic wine and canapés. 

“It’s all halal.”  Gary told Karim, hoping that his painstaking research on this topic had produced accurate results. 

“Thank you.”  Karim said as he clinked glasses with Gary.  He tasted the drink and smiled, “is good!” 

“How did you and Karim meet?”  Janice, in a light pink cocktail dress that hugged her petit hourglass figure, her caramel hair falling in waves down her back, her almost aqua blue eyes alight with interest, seated on the edge of her favourite chair, her ankles folded, her hands in her lap, looked like a picture of perfection.  Linda’s eyes fell upon her with an unimpressed look before they flicked to Rae as if to say; ‘this is the kind of women these Nelson men want.’  Rae read that look loud and clear and narrowed her eyes at her mother in distaste. 

“We met at the club.”  Linda kept her answered deliberately brief, wanting to avoid all the information about the previous illegal status of Karim.  Janice nodded as if that answered everything and then tried again to get conversation flowing.

“Rae tells me you got married in Tunisia before getting married again here?”  Janice smiled winningly, “How romantic!” 

“Not really, just two weddings to organise!”  Linda dismissed her but still sounded pleased and Janice seized upon that. 

“Rae tells me that the wedding dress you wore for your wedding here was very beautiful?”  Janice stopped herself from saying something about Linda’s lovely figure; it had been made clear to her that it was weird for her to gush over other women’s bodies when she’d just met them. 

“Oh well yes.”  Linda nodded her head pleased.  Finn settled back on the lounge with Rae, taking Aiesha from her and looking down at the curious baby.  She reached up for his nose and he lowered his face so she could grab it.  Finn could still hold her in one arm, so he laced the other one around Rae and they leaned into each other while they entertained Aiesha.  Gary was only half listening to Linda and Janice bang on about different types of lace for wedding dresses; his attention was mostly held by watching his son with the baby.  He heard Finn call Aiesha ‘little one’ and felt his breath catch.  Gary had called both of his children ‘little one.’  He watched as Finn talked to Aiesha softly and sometimes looked up at Rae, a huge, stupidly happy grin on his face.  He watched the way Rae and Finn held each other, he saw Finn say ‘I love you’ quietly to Rae, saw Rae return those words.  Gary had known for some time that this was a very serious relationship between his son and Rae, but seeing them with this baby had hammered that point home.  Gary knew with absolute clarity that he was looking at his future daughter in law.  He looked up at Linda and sighed.  He knew that Linda was concerned about the amount of time Rae and Finn were spending together.  He understood that any reasonable parent would be, but he also knew that trying to interfere with them was only going to push them both away.  Finn would drop out of school and work to pay for an apartment before he’d be told that he couldn’t spend a night with Rae.  Gary looked over at Karim and saw that he was watching Rae and Finn in the same way that he himself had just been. 

“So how did you and Gary meet?”  Linda asked, warming to Janice finally. 

“Through Finn.”  Janice said, not realising the implication in Linda’s question.  Gary blushed and lowered his eyes.

“Eh mum, they’re not together.”  Rae explained hurriedly. 

“Oh.” Linda looked at Janice, confused, “Then…?”

“Oh!”  Janice laughed understanding the misunderstanding, “No.  No.”  She shook her head blushing, “No I rent a room here.” 

“You’re a tenant?”  Linda asked, “Why are you coming to a family dinner then?”

“Janice is part of our family.”  Finn asserted calmly in the voice he reserved for Linda, “she belong here.”  Janice shot a sweet smile in Finn’s direction and turned her blushing face back to Linda.  Rae noticed Gary’s lowered face and watched him gently straighten his shirt, as if to draw attention away from his blush. 

“I met Finn when he was in Leeds.”  Janice explained, “And then when I got a job here, Gary was very kind in offering me his spare room.”  Linda nodded slowly, her eyes passing between Janice and Gary.

“When’s the food gonna be ready dad, I’m starving?”  Finn wanted to stop any possible comment Linda was about to make.

“Hi starving, I’m dad!”  Gary returned jovially.  Karim laughed loudly at this but everyone else looked at Gary silently.  Finn stared at his dad with a straight face as Karim chuckled, and then slowly shook his head. 

“How old’s your little one there?”  Gary tried to fix the awkwardness as he looked over at Aiesha. 

“Nearly six months.”  Linda replied more warmly. 

“She is a little cutie.”  He grinned and watched Finn bobbing her up and down as she made happy noises.  A slightly melancholy smile crossed his face that Rae understood, but she hoped her mother hadn’t seen it.

“If you don’t mind me saying.”  Linda looked at Gary astutely, “You seem too young to have a son Finn’s age.”

“Oh well, I don’t hide the fact that he was an unexpected surprise when I was quite young, but one of the best things to ever happen to me.”  He looked over at Finn who was giving him a foreboding look, Gary suddenly fretted that he’d said the wrong thing. 

“So it runs in the family then?”  Linda asked pointedly.  Finn felt Rae’s body grow tense beside him.

“Pardon?”  Gary asked bewildered.

“Being a bit of a lothario… runs in the family?”

“The fuck’s a lothario?”  Finn asked Rae under his breath, but he could feel her shaking with anger, her whole body tense, her teeth gritted. 

“I’d hardly call myself a lothario Mrs Bushtat.”  Gary answered, clearly offended, “I’ve been celibate for the last seven years and Finn’s mother is the only woman I’ve ever been with.”  He stared her down, “So if it runs in the family, I might suggest that you’ve got nothing to worry about when it comes to Rae’s heart in my son’s hands, and that Finn deserves quite a bit more respect from you.”  There was a deathly silence following Gary’s words in which both Finn and Janice had to take a moment to process what Gary had said.  Rae opened her mouth, unsure what she was going to say, but she was sure it was going to be something that blasted the hell out of her mother, but the timer on the oven went off loudly. 

“The food’s ready!”  Janice declared happily and reached a hand out to Linda and the other to Rae, “Why don’t we girls serve up the food and leave the men to look after little Aiesha.  Rae stood up and indicated to her mother that she had to come too.  Linda stood up stiffly and followed Janice and Rae from the room. 

“She meant no harm dad.”  Finn said softly when the kitchen door had closed, “she just looking out for Rae.”

“I’m sorry son.  I don’t mean to upset your future mother in law, but I won’t leave things like that unchallenged.”  Gary turned his face to Karim as Finn realised that his father was already considering Linda and Karim as his in-laws.  Finn couldn’t help but grin as he watched his father apologise to Karim.  Karim was gracious in the way he accepted the apology, but made no apologies for Linda, because while he didn’t agree with Linda on this topic, she was his wife, and he would back her 100% in public.  In the privacy of their own home, he might argue about this, but not here.  Finn knew and understood all of that, and respected Karim deeply for the way he handled things like this. 

Finn, being closest to the kitchen, could hear that Rae and Linda were arguing and he took a deep steadying breath and held Aiesha to his chest as she started to doze.  Gary and Karim started a conversation about Tunisia’s rich history and Finn listened for any sign that Rae needed him. 

Moments later Janice invited them to come and sit at the dining room table.  Finn sat down at the table next to Rae, sitting a sleeping Aiesha in his lap carefully.  Gary sat at the head of the table next to Rae and Janice took up residence at the other end of the table, leaving Linda and Karim to sit opposite Finn and Rae. 

“We’re entered into a one act play in London.”  Rae said as cheerily as she could muster, as Gary cut up the beef roast and Janice put vegetables on everyone’s plates.  “Finn has to act in it.”  She grinned at Finn who was already eating the roast pumpkin Janice had put on his plate, stabbing at it with his fork, the other arm protectively around Aiesha. 

“Aye, I get to play Daryl… which is...”

“McDuff.”

“McDuff, in the original.  Best bit is Bill ended up getting Ben, which is Macbeth, so I get to kill that fucker.”

“Watch your language in front o’ her.”  Rae admonished and he grinned guiltily.

“Sorry little one.”  He kissed her forehead and kept eating.

“It’s a contemporary adaptation of Macbeth.”  Rae explained. 

“And why are we happy to be killing Bill?”  Janice asked amused.

“Phillip.”  Rae corrected.

“Ah cos he riles me up all the time.”  Finn shook his head, “He got a thing for Rae and he goes after her like a lion after a zebra.”

“He’s not quite that bad.”  Rae said, “But.”  She saw that Finn was about to retort and stopped him, “He does chase me.”  Rae acknowledged and Finn was satisfied with that. 

“And he does it in front o’ me.”  Finn said pointedly. 

“You’ve got another boy interested in you?’  Linda asked Rae with interest.

“Several.”  Finn replied.  “Mike,”  Finn looked at Rae with a mildly unimpressed expression, “who you and Chloe and Izzy call ‘hot Mike’ when you think us lads can’t hear you.”  Rae blushed and looked down, “wants to shag you.”

“Yeah I heard.”  Rae was not going to argue with him about this topic again; she was acutely aware of the damage she’d done with the Phillip issue. 

“Macca’s a little sweet on you.”  Finn shoved a piece of beef in his mouth, no one else had started eating yet; the food had not been fully served.  “Josh likes you quite a bit, caught him looking down your top a few back.” 

“Why is it that when I were single, there was not a boy in sight?  But now I’m taken, suddenly there’s a glut of ‘em!”

“It’s what happens when you’re happy.”  Janice answered, “Happiness attracts people.” 

“Can’t argue with that.”  Rae replied. 

Between them Rae and Janice managed to keep a conversation going for most of the meal.  Karim took Aiesha for a spell and Finn cleared the table.  Janice started to prepare dessert, leaving Rae alone to try and forward the conversation, but Linda was having one of it.

“I can see that you care very much about your son.”  She said curtly and Gary folded his hands on the table, aware that Linda felt she had something important to say.  “And I am thankful for everything he’s done for Rae, but it’s time for her to start spending more time with her family and to focus on her grades, and to just go back to having a normal teenage life; one in which she can spend some time alone to get her own thoughts straight in her head.  She deserves a well-rounded life.”  Linda looked at Rae and saw the angry red spots appearing on her cheeks, but she pressed on.  “So I am asking you as one parent to another, to help me just curtail this a little.  I don’t want them to not be together, that’s not the aim. Just that school nights should be spent in their own beds.  Weekends I don’t care.”  She looked at Gary sincerely, “I’m asking this because every time I attempt to restore order to Rae’s life, she simply disappears to your house.”  Finn put his hand on Rae’s thigh.

_Just wait_

He wrote to stop her from yelling at her mother.  Finn needed to hear his father’s answer.  If it was the wrong answer they’d be leaving tonight; they’d stay at Chop’s place until he got a job and sorted everything out. 

“I would say Mrs Bushtat, that under normal circumstances, you’re not asking for anything unreasonable.”  Gary replied calmly.  Finn felt his fingers twitch, felt Rae’s rage waltzing along a hair trigger.  “I know that Rae’s marks have stayed the same, and Finn’s have improved.”  He addressed Linda’s concerns, “And I wouldn’t mind more family time,” Gary agreed with her, “But that’s the way it is when they grow up.”  Gary thought about what he was going to say, “I think all ideals of what a normal teenage life is and what we should do as parents went out the window when Rae got a stalker.  And those ideals left forever when my son took a knife to the stomach to protect your daughter’s life.”  Gary looked down at his hands.  “I understand that you were away on important business during that time.”  Gary’s voice thickened with emotion, “But your daughter was assaulted.”  Gary shook his head, “Things like that shouldn’t happen.”  He muttered, “And my son nearly died.  He was on life support on two separate occasions, cos there was a second bleed.”  Rae had to stop herself shuddering when she thought about how Finn had lost consciousness less than 20 minutes after he’d first told her he loved her.  She’d watched them stabilise him and put him on life support.  It had been a horrific moment in time that she didn’t want to remember. 

“He lost 42% of is blood,”  Gary continued, “and his liver was severely damaged.  He’s still not fully healed.”  Gary said all of this as calmly as he could, “I watched my son…” He held his emotion in check, “nearly die.”  He said finally, “All for Rae.”  He added meaningfully.  “Everything’s for Rachel.”  Rae lowered her eyes and Finn squeezed her thigh again.

“I’m not suggesting that Finn doesn’t care for Rae.”  Linda answered, “I just want Rae to have a normal life.”

“I want that for my son too.”  Gary agreed.  “I do worry, like you Linda.”  Gary looked at Finn, “he takes a lot of risks for Rae.  And they argue sometimes.  And the two times they broke up he fled to Leeds cos he couldn’t stand to be in the same town as her and not be with her.”  Linda’s eyes turned to Finn.  “I worry.”  He acknowledged, “I worry that it’s too much too soon.  I worry what will happen if they break up again.”  And then Gary shrugged, “But then I look at Rae.  The young woman he goes through all o’ this stuff for.”  He smiled warmly at Rae, “There’s a lot of things in Finn’s life that I worry about.  But Rae’s not one of them.”  He nodded resolutely, “I’m as sure of her as he is.”  He turned his eyes back to Linda and Rae felt a genuine love in her heart for Gary, “I’m not gonna interfere with my son’s relationship.”  He shook his head, “I’m sorry, but I won’t help you there.  I may be his father, but it would be overstepping my mark.  My son’s a man now.  He makes his own decisions.”  Gary looked over at his son with real pride, “and he’s a good man.  And I trust his decisions.”  Gary looked back at Linda, “So I suggest you talk to him and Rae about this.  Not me.”

Linda narrowed her eyes slightly, taking in everything Gary had said. 

“I’m not saying that they don’t love each other.  Or that they shouldn’t be together.”  Linda said softy and turned to her eyes to Rae, “I’m just saying… You got time Rae.  Slow down.”

Gary leaned over the table and took Linda’s hand.

“I think we understand each other perfectly Linda.”  Gary smiled reassuringly at her.  “Cos if it were up to me, I’d have them slow down too.”  He looked over at Finn, “but it’s not up to me. And if I’m honest, I certainly didn’t take that advice when I was his age.”  He smiled reminiscently, “And Kenzie was the best decision I ever made.”  He lowered his eyes, “Most painful too.”  He mumbled. 

“I just want the best for you Rae.”  Linda pleaded with her to understand.

“I know mum.”  Rae answered, her anger lessening.

“And I don’t want to see you cry like that again.” 

“I don’t know what to say to you mum.”  Rae answered, “I belong with Finn.”  Rae shrugged and wished her mum would just understand. 

“You trusted me to look after Rae when we was right worried about Saul.”  Finn said to Linda gently, “you can still trust me.”  Linda turned her eyes to Karim not knowing what to say to them and wishing he could offer her some guidance.  Karim looked down at his sleeping daughter and then over to Rae and Finn.  He wished his English skills were stronger.  He sighed and spoke in French again, expecting Rae to help translate. 

“J’ai entièrement confiance dans le couple formé par Rae et Finn.”  Karim tried to tell her. 

“Vous parlez français?”  Janice asked as she returned to the table with dessert. 

“Oui! Vous aussi?”  Karim answered, happy to finally find someone who spoke his language.

“Mon père a insisté pour que je l'apprenne.  Je connais l'arabe, le portugais et un peu de mandarin aussi!”  Janice returned and then looked around at the table of people looking at her, wondering what they were saying.  Rae had understood part of what they were saying, mostly she had caught that Janice spoke 5 languages.  

“Peux-tu traduire pour moi?”  Karim asked.

“Oui bien sûr!”  Janice answered.

“Dîtes à ma femme que j'ai confiance en Rae et Finn.  Mais je ne vais pas lui dire quoi ressentir.”  He turned to look at Linda as Janice spoke

“He says he trusts them.”  Janice said softly, “But that he won’t tell you what to think.”

“I knew you’d say that.”  She mumbled to him and he smiled lovingly at her.  Even with the language barrier they understood each other perfectly.  Karim turned to Janice.

“Vous parlez arabe?”

“Ouais.”  Janice nodded, “Très mal.”  She grimaced.

“Pouvez-vous le lire?”  Karim asked hopefully.

“Ouais, mieux que je le parle!”  Janice chuckled and then, looked at everyone.  “He’s asking about Arabic now, because I can read it.”  He explained. 

“Je veux que Linda sache que la chose que je lui ai murmuré quand nous étions seuls sont les mots d'un grand poète arabe.”  He grinned, “Parce que j'ai grandi en apprenant les choses de l'amour par ce grand poète.”  He said softly.  “C'était ce qui m'a fait croire en l'amour.”  Janice nodded, her mind working on the translation.

“He whispers the words of the Arabic poets he grew up reading to you.”  Janice said, “Reading their poetry is what made him such a romantic.”  Janice grinned and handed the dessert over to Gary, he started to cut the large tiramisu into smaller servings.  Linda looked at Karim with a smile and tutted affectionately.

“Oh you.”  She mumbled and touched his face. 

“Mon père m'a donné un poème de Khalil Gibran comme seul conseil qu'il m'ait jamais donné à propos de l'amour.”  Karim took a battered piece of paper out of his wallet and handed it to Janice.  “Je veux le partager avec vous maintenant.”

“He says his father gave him this poem by Khalil Gibran as advice about love.  He wants to pass this advice on now.” 

Janice looked down at the poem, beautifully hand written onto the creamy paper.  “It’s in Arabic.”  She furrowed her brows and let her fingers follow the writing as she read it.  Gary finished serving the dessert feeling that slowly things were working out; that these two families would somehow come together alright. 

“Ok.”  Janice took a deep breath.  “My Arabic is a little more rusty than I thought it was.  But I think I’ll be able to read it out, if you want me to?”  Finn wrapped an arm around Rae’s waist and picked up his spoon, starting to eat, again before everyone else.  Karim nodded and Linda acquiesced with a small shrug. 

“Alright.”  She looked back down at the poetry and read it slowly and clearly. 

“When love beckons to you, follow him,  
Though his ways are hard and steep.  
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,  
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.  
And when he speaks to you believe in him,  
Though his voice may shatter your dreams  
as the north wind lays waste the garden.   
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.  
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,  
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.   
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.  
He threshes you to make you naked.  
He sifts you to free you from your husks.  
He grinds you to whiteness.  
He kneads you until you are pliant;  
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.   
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.   
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,  
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,  
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.  
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.  
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;  
For love is sufficient unto love.   
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.”  Janice looked at the words and shook her head slowly, “That’s so beautiful.”  Karim looked down the table at Rae and Finn.  Gary nodded his head in understanding; this poem spoke to him on a very deep level; love had wounded him deeply but it also sustained him.  He could ask for nothing less for his son than to know these extremes of love.  Because that is what life is made up of. 

Linda stared off as she considered Karim’s poem.  She knew that they were so young, and there was every chance of them falling out of love as she had with Victor.  But she understood that she couldn’t protect Rae from any of this. 

“Alright.”  Linda said slowly to Rae, “but you two have got to spend as many nights at home as you do here.”  She commanded and Rae nodded her head slowly.  “And you’ll spend more time downstairs.”  She added.

“We do our homework in me room too mum.”

“Do it downstairs.”  Linda countered and Rae slowly nodded her head again.

“Alright.”

“Top dessert Janice.”  Gary changed the topic ineptly and Rae started to laugh.  Finn chuckled and stroked Rae’s hair gently.  He had hated having to sit back while they tried to make his decisions for him.  But being patient had yielded better results than he would have gotten by telling them all that what he and Rae did was none of their business.  Karim took the poem from Janice and slowly handed it to Rae, his hands going around hers as she took it. 

“Thank you.”  Rae looked down at the poem with reverence. 

“Do you want me to write up an English translation for you?”  Janice asked her.

“Yes please.”  But Rae kept the poem in her hands looking at the Arabic script scrawled across the page. 

“You know, there’s an exhibition of local artist opening at the arts centre this weekend.”  Gary tried again to lighten the mood, “D’you all want to come with me?”

“D’you know, I was thinking of starting the pottery class they offer.”  Linda said, “I’d love to come, I can have a bit of a look at how the centre’s going with the new director.”

“That’s me.”  Janice said softly.

“Oh really?”  Linda asked, keenly interested, “What do you think about doing some mums and bubs classes?”

“Or dads and bubs.”  Finn mumbled and Rae put her arms around him and squeezed him gently. 

“I think it’s a great idea!”  Janice answered, “We should get together and talk about it.”

The rest of the evening was strangely good, Janice and Linda ended up talking for hours about the arts centre; Rae has had no idea that her mother was so into that topic, and Karim and Gary had struck up their conversation about Tunisia again, Janice or Rae occasionally helping with a translation.  Finn and Rae babysat Aiesha and talked softly together about homework, music, plans for the weekend, normal things.  It was almost like having a normal life for a moment. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘You Belong to Me’ by Bob Dylan _

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RgQYW4DNok>

 

To demonstrate to Linda that Rae had meant what she said, Finn and Rae went to Rae’s house when the evening was over. 

They had stayed downstairs for an hour, chatting and playing with Aiesha before Linda and Karim settled in to watch television, and Rae and Finn decided it was time to be alone. 

When they had climbed the stairs to Rae’s room, she silently opened a drawer in her biggest set of drawers and took the clothes out, putting them on the floor; she’d figure out what to do with them later.  Finn slowly grinned when he saw what she was doing.  Without a word he took the clothes out of his backpack and put them in the drawer she cleared for him.  She started on a second drawer but he drew her into his arms and kissed her.  They slunk to the floor, their kisses slow and penetrating.  She slowly undressed him, her fingers tingling along his skin as she removed his clothes, their eyes always locked, their pupils’ huge with love and desire.  Finn unbuttoned Rae’s shirt and his eyes fell upon her necklace, he looked back up at her eyes as he finished undressing her and laid her down amongst the clothes from her drawers on the floor.  He stroked her hair slowly, their eyes unable to look anywhere but at each other.  He slowly, reverently, slid into her, marvelling at the gentle gasping intake of air it always elicited from her lips.  He spent a long time, slowly thrusting into her and drinking in every molecule of her face, knowing that she drunk him in, in the same way. 

“I fall more in love with you every day.”  She whispered to him and his insides screamed with joy.

“Rae.”  He breathed and she could sense the vulnerability in his tone, “your necklace.”  He stopped moving, and allowed his eyes to penetrate hers.  “My Nan intended that to go to my wife.”  He said slowly, “I gave it to you, because I intend for you to be my wife.”  He stroked her hair, “Sometime in the future, when you least expect it, I will ask you, and I will put a ring on your finger if you tell me yes.”  He watched her eyes slowly blink and then refocus on his eyes.  “These are not just words.  I mean to spend the rest of my life with you.  You understand me clearly?”

“Yes.”  She sighed contently.

“I’m completely at your mercy girl.”  He told her. 

“I know.”  She whispered.  He smiled slowly at her words; how long had she known?  “On some level, I think I’ve always known what this necklace meant Finn.”  She told him almost silently.  “But certainly since I lost it, when it was cut from my neck, I have understood perfectly what this necklace means to you and to me, since that day.”  Rae felt a peace inside of her; knowledge that she had found the one, that he loved her as much as she loved him.  “There’s a reason why I choose to wear it.”  She ran her hands up his back to his hair.  “It’s because without you I’m nothing.  There’s nothing Finn, if you’re not in my life… there’s nothing… I can’t be without you.  And those are not just words.  You understand?”  She shook her head and Finn saw the vulnerability and honesty in her eyes.

“Aye.”  He felt his breath leave him as he took her in again; knowing beyond any doubt that they were going to last.

“So I intend to say yes, when you ask me Finn.”  Finn’s smile was still relieved, even though he had been sure she did love him as deeply as he loved her.  It was terrifying to love her as deeply as he did; she could break him just by turning away from him.  And all he could do was love her desperately.  Finn slowly ground his hips into her, continuing their slow love making.  Their lips met and in that kiss their future was laid out before them.  It could be anything they chose, but it would be together. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ by The Stone Roses _

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D2qcbu26gs&feature=kp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D2qcbu26gs&feature=kp)

 

“Alright.”  He walked over to her and Chloe took a deep breath.  “How much do you know about tennis?” 

“Not a whole lot.”  Chloe acknowledged, “But I can hit the ball.”

“Well that’s a good start.”  He smiled encouragingly, as all around them pairings were figuring out tennis.  Mr Buchanan had broken the first year PE class into pairs so they could play a mini mixed-doubles tennis tournament over the next few weeks.  Chloe had been paired, rather luckily, with the Lincolnshire males singles champion Philip Seymour.  And that would be alright, except he had a crush on Rae and was constantly riling up Finn.  Although Finn did come on a bit strong around Phillip, so Chloe supposed Phillip was just giving as good as he got.  Chloe watched him change his shirt and had to do a double take.  Over the past six months Phillip had undergone somewhat of a transformation; she’d first noticed that the gawkiness in him was fading during the AFL exhibition match she’d seen.  But even more so, he had grown into his body, his shoulders had broadened and his torso had grown tight and hard.  He’d no doubt been working out, but there was something more: he’d become right proper manly.  Chloe felt a slight pull at her innards as he tugged his white tennis shirt down over his abdominals and had to look away, internally bemoaning the fact that this hottie was deeply in trouble over her best mate, she looked back as he took a swig of water and looked for something in his bag.  Phil looked up and saw her looking at him.

“What?”  He asked, completely unaware of his own attractiveness. 

“Nothing.”  Chloe said and lowered her eyes.  Phil looked at her for a moment and shrugged. 

“Alright.”  He said indifferent to her response, “Let’s have a practice match then.”  He added bracingly.

“You’ll kick my arse.”  Chloe said as she took the racket from him.

“I’ll go easy on you.”  Chloe liked the way he said that; with no hint of ego. 

“See that you do!”  She laughed and he grinned.  He hit the ball gently over the net to her and she whacked it back hard.  He hadn’t been expecting that, but even so he managed to hit it and send it sailing back into Chloe’s side of the court.  She hit it back, double handed, with as much force as she could muster and Phillip smashed it into her back corner sending it flying out of play.  Chloe looked at the ball as it rolled away and then looked back at Phil as he pulled a ball out of his pocket and bounced it.

“So I think you Miss Gemmell know a lot more about tennis than you let on.”

“Maybe a little.”  She answered cheekily and Phillip grinned.  “You still beat me though.”  Chloe motioned to her back corner and Phillip shrugged.

“Lucky hit.”  He lied.

“Bullshit.”  Chloe chuckled and he broke out into a smile. 

“You play at your best so I can see where you’re at, yeah?”

“Alright.”  Chloe replied.  He served gently, but not as gentle as previously, and she returned it easily.  Their rally lasted for some time, Phillip slowly increasing the difficulty of his return shots until Chloe missed one.

“You’re pretty good.”  Phillip commented. “Had lessons?”

“Five years of summer lessons.”  Chloe responded.  “When I were a little girl.”

“Why d’you stop?”  He asked her as he tossed her a ball to see her serve.

“Because o’ this.”  Chloe tried to serve and Phillip pulled a face.

“Oh god.”  He chuckled, “You’ve got a fucking awful serve!”  Chloe laughed.  She liked the way he sounded when he swore.

“So I picked up dancing instead.”  She called across the court to him.  He tossed her another ball.

“Again.”  He said and watched her form closely.  “Alright we’re gonna have to work on that if we’re gonna win.”  He jogged around the tennis net and came up to her.

“It’s just a shitty school tournament.”  Chloe shook her head.

“Yeah but it turns out I’m quite competitive when it comes to tennis.”

“Why?’  Chloe asked with a cheeky grin, “You’re not competing against Finn.”  She teased, enjoying the look he gave her.

“You went there huh?”  He said with a mild disbelief and begrudging acceptance that he had put himself in this position by being so open about his affections for Rae and rivalry with Finn. 

“Of course I did.”  She kept grinning cheekily at him and he found himself chuckling as she continued, “I gotta put you off your game somehow.  Make myself look better.”

“How about we both work at being the best, so we can kick everyone else’s arse, win this shitty school tournament, and you can look good that way instead?”

“I suppose that’s an option.”  Chloe conceded.

“Right, serve again.”  He ordered with an air of command that Chloe hadn’t seen from him before.  She liked it when he was confident like this.  She served and he wiped his face.  “It’s your left foot.”  He said slowly.

“My old coach said I had a problem with me right shoulder.”  She countered.

“You do, but it starts in your left foot.”  He put his hands on her hips and squared her up, Chloe had been expecting her body to recoil from his touch, but it hadn’t and she was so grateful as he now stood there so close to her, his breath tickling her face as he talked “You put too much weight on your left foot, your hips naturally cock to the left.”  Chloe felt a tingle down her spine, “You gotta counter that or else it puts your balance out.”  He took his hands off her hips and look at her feet.  “Was Kelso your coach?”

“Yeah.”  Chloe answered, her eyes on him.

“Figures.”  Phil muttered, “He never looks at feet.”  He shook his head, “You could o’ been a tennis star with a better coach.”

“Maybe you could teach me?”  Chloe tried to make herself sound less breathless, but Phil didn’t notice how he affected her, he just produced another ball for her to hit. 

“I’m not much of a teacher.”  He grinned, “Try again.”  He ordered.  Chloe’s whole body felt slightly off, he was right, she did put more weight on her left foot, and now she was acutely aware of it.

“I’m not sure where to start!” She laughed and he chuckled along with her.  But she tried and the serve was a bit better, but too high.

“You’ll need practice.”  He handed her another ball.  “Again.”  He said firmly.

“Why do you think you’re not a good teacher?”

“Me mum says I’m too mean.”  Phillip grinned, “Now do it again.”  He ordered.

“Does she mean the way you give orders?”  Chloe asked and then tried to serve again.  He gently grabbed her arm and dipped her shoulder.

“You’re overcompensating with your shoulder now.”  He told her, “And yeah, that’s what she means.”  He backed up to watch her.  “Do it again.”

“It’s actually kinda sexy.”  Chloe said and then turned to serve pretty well.  Phillip paused, looking at her, unsure how to take what she’d said.  Chloe turned to him with a cheeky smile, “Maybe you should try teaching Rae tennis?”  Phillip turned his eyes away, feeling a blush on his cheeks.

“You shouldn’t boss people around.”  He said softly, “It’s not polite.”

“Yeah well fuck polite.”  Chloe responded and reached into his pocket for another ball.  Phillip watched her as she got the ball from his pocket, confused about what was happening, and then watched her do another serve.

“You’re balance is going left again.  Watch it.”  He said sternly, “Again.”  He watched her serve again, but had no balls in his pockets now so he did another sweep of the court and pocketed as many of the balls as he could, the others he held, tossing them to Chloe as she practiced her serve. 

“Do you really want me to teach you?”  He asked after a few more minutes of watching her serve gradually improve.

“Yes.”  She said and turned to him. “I do.”

”Alright.”  He lowered his eyes and thought of a time that was suitable.  “What do you do Saturday mornings?”

“Tennis lessons now.”  Chloe saw him bite the inside of his mouth, a mannerism she often saw Finn display and felt herself grinning.  He shook his head in disbelief.

“Alright.”  He replied.  “6am?”

“You trying to kill me?”  She said in mock anger.

“No.”  Phil answered in a tone that clearly denoted that he hadn’t realised she was joking, “I’m sorry.”  He looked bewildered and Chloe laughed.

“How about 7 or even 8?”

“Oh.”  He said softly, looking down.  “I want a decent amount time with you or it’s not worth doing.  And I got violin at 9.”  He looked up, “I can move that to Sunday though.”  He smiled, “that leaves me open till midday.”

“Well consider yourself booked every Saturday until midday.”  Chloe grinned.

“Done.”  He answered, completely missing the flirting Chloe was doing, but that only endeared him to Chloe even more. 

“So how am I gonna pay you?”  She said with a hint of seduction. 

“Oh I was just gonna do it for free.”  He shrugged, “It’s not like I got teaching qualifications.”  Chloe had to stop herself from rolling her eyes at his naivety.  She was sure she had been obvious enough that any red blooded male would have caught that.  But it occurred to Chloe that Phillip was so enamoured with Rae that other women weren’t on his radar. 

“You got it bad for Rae huh?”  She shook her head.

“Where did that come from?”  Phil lowered his eyes.

“Real bad.”  Chloe laughed.  “D’you think she knows?”

“No.”  Phillip said honestly, his face reddening.  “I think she suspects though.”  He looked up at Chloe, “Does she ever say anything?”

“About you?”  Chloe asked and Phillip nodded.  “She’s me best mate Phil, I’m not gonna tell you anything she says.”  Chloe answered firmly and served again. 

“Fair enough.”  He answered, “I shouldn’t o’ asked you.”

“You can ask me anything.”  Chloe said with an imperious look, “But I don’t have to answer.”

“Of course.”  He shuffled is feet and looked down.

“Got any other questions?”  Phillip hesitated but looked up at her, wanting to know the truth. 

“Those rumours going around… about you and Finn?”

“Not true.”  Chloe answered, sticking to her plan to never admit to that kiss for Rae’s sake.  “The rumours happened cos someone got wind that I were in love with Finn.”

“You?”  Phillip asked, “But Rae’s your best mate.”

“Things like that don’t stop you from falling in love.”  Chloe retorted, “As you would know Phillip.”

“Touché.”  He acknowledged and handed her a ball.  “Again, do it better this time.”  Chloe served and turned to him.

“Why haven’t you just talked to her?”

“I’m not ready for Rae to know for sure.”  He shook his head.

“Not ready for her to turn you down?”

“You don’t know that she will turn me down.”

“Yeah I do.  And so do you if you’re honest.”  Phillip shook his head slowly in response.

“Until she tells me no Chloe, I’m gonna have hope.” 

“You enjoy that.”  Chloe picked up a towel and wiped her face. 

“So you love Finn and I love Rae.”  He chuckled.

“We’re like the cast offs.”  Chloe agreed with a rueful smile, “O’ course I don’t actually love Finn.  Just the idea of him.”

“The idea of Finn?  What the fuck would you love about that?”  Phillip laughed.

“Ah you gotta know Finn to understand it.”  Chloe answered, “I know he don’t look it to you, but he’s a good bloke.” 

“I’ll take your word for it.”  Phillip answered sceptically. 

“He only come on strong around you, cos he devoted to her.”  Chloe retorted.

“So he should be.”  Phillip answered, “He gets to be with her.  He should worship her.”

“And he does.”  Chloe said sadly, “and that’s what I want.”

“Well you don’t need a Finn for that.”

“But I never seen any other guy love a girl like he does.  So that’s why… I love the idea of him.”

“There’s plenty o’ guys out there that’d worship you Chloe.  You’re a top lass.”  Phillip said with a small smile. 

“Well hopefully one o’ these mythical guys you’re talking about with see it soon.”  Chloe answered, “Cos I’m pretty tired o’ waiting.” 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Black’ by Pearl Jam _

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs-XZ_dN4Hc>

 

Rae looked at herself in the mirror while Chloe knelt in front of her with Izzy’s pinbear and several pins in her mouth, pinning up the hem of the dress. 

“Hold the pinbear.”  Chloe said and Rae took the stuffed bear by the ear.  Touching it anywhere else was deadly because it had hundreds of pins that Izzy used for dress making sticking out of it.  When Chop had first seen the pinbear months ago, he had called it terrifying yet somehow cute.  Izzy had enjoyed that and pinbear had stayed as part of her sewing kit with a place of honour. 

Rae was taken with the detail in the dress, Izzy had sewn most of it by hand in hospital, and it was clearly intended as a formal dress for the summer ball. 

“It’s so beautiful.”  Rae breathed and Chloe nodded. 

“She hand crocheted the lace on the back.”  Rae turned to look in the mirror and Chloe made an annoyed noise.

“Sorry.”  Rae stood still and Chloe continued to pin the hem. 

“Thank you for this Chloe.”  Rae said, ‘I know you did it for Izzy, but…”

“Izzy did most of the work.”  Chloe said honestly, “I’ll just be sewing up the hem.  But I think she wanted to do something on the hemline too.  So I’ll have to wait for her to wake up to ask her what she-”  Chloe stopped short.  And they both shared a moment of silence.  Chloe finished up pinning the hem and looked up at Rae.  “You can get changed now.”

“Thanks.”  Rae went behind Chloe’s room divider and changed clothes as Chloe packed up Izzy’s things.

“I can’t stand this waiting.”  Chloe suddenly snapped.  “It’s like it goes on forever Rae.”  She slammed the lid on Izzy’s sewing box.  “When will she wake up?”  Rae stepped out from behind the divider and looked sympathetically at Chloe, “And when’s Liam gonna wake up?”  She sat on her bed despondently.

“And don’t forget my favourite game when are they gonna come back and try to kill us?”  Rae tried to say it jokingly but Chloe looked at her with a strange look in her eye.

“Ian can come back whenever he wants Rae.”  Chloe said, “Cos I’ll fucking kill him if her ever lays a finger on me again.” 

“Good.”  Rae answered and Chloe looked up her, surprised.  

“I thought you’d tell me not to think that way.”

“Why would I say that?”

“I dunno.”  Chloe aid, “You want me to think positive?”

“I see no negativity in thinking about killing him.”  Rae sat down next to her. 

“Do you think about killing Saul?”

“Sometimes.”  Rae answered, “And it sure beats thinking about him killing me.”

“What was it like Rae?”  Chloe tried to open Rae up about her trauma. 

“You know what it was like.”  Rae mumbled.

“But he didn’t hold a knife to me throat.  Or cut me.  Or nearly kill the love of my life.” 

“He didn’t pass me around his friends.”  Rae answered softly, “what was that like?”  Chloe shook her head.

“The worst.”  She answered honestly. 

“Yeah.  The worst.”  They hugged, urgently, deeply protective of each other.  Chloe held Rae’s face in her hands.

“We have to look after each other Rae.” 

“Aye.”  Rae agreed earnestly. 

“And I want to tell you that I’m sorry about Finn again.”

“You were forgiven ages ago.”

“Yeah but I don’t feel that way about him anymore Rae.”  Chloe said, “I want a Finn, not your Finn.”  She said happily, “understanding that has been one ray of light in my very cloudy world.”

“You’ll find a Finn.”  Rae said resolutely. 

“You know Rae, some days even I believe that.”  Chloe took a deep breath and looked over at her clock.  “C’mon, the lads’ll be waiting for us.” 

Rae and Chloe linked arms as they walked down the street towards the Chippy. 

When they walked in, Finn was already waiting, Tammy, the pretty girl that worked behind the counter was at the table changing the condiments and laughing with Finn.  Rae knew that Tammy had a bit of a crush on Finn, but Finn was oblivious, so she said nothing to Finn about it.  Besides, Tammy was lovely, and her little crush on Finn meant that the gang always got good discounts.  They sat down, Rae and Finn sharing a kiss.  Archie wandered in looking tired and unimpressed as another lad started to walk out.  He stopped Archie, recognising him. 

“Archie?”  Archie looked at him blankly and then slowly recognition hit him.

“Barney.”  He said softly. 

“The one and only Barnstable as Chop calls me.”  He grinned.

“Where have you been?”  Archie asked with a small grin.  This was the boy he’d kissed at the sexy party, the boy he’d spent all night talking to.  The boy that he’d first really felt something for and had made him know he was gay. 

“Oh me da were at an embassy in Indonesia.  Fucking hot there!”  He laughed and Archie grinned at him.  “We should catch up some time.”  Barney grinned, “I quite liked your company.” 

“Yeah.”  Archie felt slightly awkward as Barney grabbed a pen from the counter and wrote his number down for Archie.  He was in a loving relationship now, and he didn’t know if he wanted to strike up a friendship with a person who had essentially been his first crush. 

“Oh hey, there’s my girlfriend.”  Barney nodded towards a pretty girl outside with some other girls.  Archie sighed silently with relief.  “I gotta go.”

“Let me give you my number.”  Archie said feeling much easier now that Barney was off the table; he’d been sure he was gay at the party, but he must have been wrong.  “I’ll see you round Barney.”  He said as he handed him the paper with his number on it and wandered over to the table, his grumpy mood returning as soon as he turned from Barney. 

“Alright?”  Finn asked, noting the grumpy mood and Archie shrugged.

“Sick o’ waiting.”  He said, “It’s like you try to keep living your life, but there’s this big terrible thing always in the corner of your eye.”  He let out a breath, “and you can’t rest until you see it.  Until you know.”

“Aye.”  Finn said sympathetically. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Hallelujah’ by Jeff Buckley _

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIF4_Sm-rgQ>

 

Chop was looking out the window.  The sun was rising and every time he saw that light enter the sky he felt a bitterness rise in his chest. 

The nurse was in and out of the room at the moment, cleaning Izzy, changing her tubes and taking tests and doing things that nurses do.  He hated watching them take the feeding tube out so he always looked out the window. 

He heard the birds singing in the trees outside the windows; small sparrows, making nests, caring for eggs.  It was the sort of thing Izzy would notice and watch for hours.  The kind of thing she’d come back to follow, how were the eggs, how were the hatchlings?  Did they fledge?  Did they all survive?

He almost hated the sunrise now.  But he also cherished it.  For the memory it gave him.  The last time she’d been conscious, two weeks ago now.  He heard the nurse step out and sighed, exhausted.  He had barely slept in all that time, and he had lost weight from not eating.  He would not leave her room.  Bradley and Victoria came and went every day.  Rae came every day; the rest of the gang banished from Izzy’s room by the staff.  But most of the time Chop was alone with Izzy.

He watched the sparrows strengthening their nest, and fluff up to sit on the eggs.  He thought about how terrifying the needle going into Izzy’s stomach to extract her eggs had been.  How she’d squeezed his hand.  How he’d hated that time.  And now he’d give almost anything to be back in that time. 

He knew that the longer she stayed like this the less likely it was that she’d wake up.  He sighed miserably and turned to her.  The nurse had left the upper bed in the upright position, so she was sleeping sitting up slightly.  Chop looked at her face, a slight colour in her cheeks made her lovelier than ever and he smiled to think of holding her in his arms.  To think of the times she’d blushed or smacked his arm to keep him in line. 

Slight colour in her cheeks. 

Chop suddenly looked closer and saw what he had missed before because he had become so accustomed to not expecting to see it ever again.

Her eyes were open. 

He inhaled sharply, not wanting to believe his eyes.  But he watched her blink slowly, her eyes still on him. 

“Izzy.”  His voice cracked and body almost crumbled under the weight of the stress and worry of the past 2 weeks, the sleeplessness, the lack of sleep, the heartache.  But he crossed the room and his hands touched her hand and then her face gently.  She smiled ever so slightly, as if it were exhausting to move even that small amount.  Chop pressed he call button and gently touched her face again.

“Alright?”  He asked urgently and she nodded slightly.  “Oh god Izzy.”  He started to sob, “I love you girl.”  He kissed her cheek gently and she turned her face to his, catching his lips softly.  He paused, everything still inside of him as their lips touched.  And then she was unconscious again.  Chop weeping over her still form as the nurses took her vital signs.

“This is a good sign.”  They told him cheerily.  And Chop held onto that. 

 

 

Days passed and every day she opened her eyes for a little longer.  On the third day she told Chop she loved him.  And that was when he knew she’d be alright.  He’d collapsed into the chair in her room and slept for nearly 20 hours. 

 

 

When he woke up, feeling groggy and starving Izzy was looking at him.  He sat up suddenly, angry at himself for falling asleep but she smiled.

“The nurses told me how tired you was.”  Her voice was still croaky, and she coughed slightly, bringing up phlegm and spitting it out into a tissue.  “Sorry.”  She rasped.

“No.  Get it all out o’ you.”  He marvelled that she was awake.  “You look so much better today.”

“I feel a lot better.”  She answered, still weak, still pale, but clearly on the mend. 

“I am glad.”  He breathed deeply, steadying his emotions.  “The last two weeks can safely go down as the worst in me life.”  He nodded and chuckled sourly. 

“I didn’t mind them.”  Izzy said guiltily, “I really needed it.”  She looked at Chop’s exhausted face and tried to explain, “It’s like my body just said, ‘I got too much to heal, I can’t be conscious as well’ and shut up shop.”  Izzy grinned weakly.  “I’m sorry I were shut down for so long.”

“You can shut down as much as you need to if it’s for you healing.”  Chop answered, “So I guess they were actually 2 good weeks then.” 

“I guess so.”  Izzy agreed, “The doctor said that it’s not uncommon.  What happened to me.  It’s not rare.”

“Well that explains why they weren’t as freaked out by it as I was.”  Izzy smiled. 

“I’m sorry Chop.  I’m tired.”

“Sleep.”  He said firmly.  “You sleep as much as you need baby girl.” 

“Gotta get my strength up so I can start chemo again.”  She said softly.

“Oh fuck I’d forgotten about that.”  But she was already asleep and he stroked her face gently.  He looked at the tray of half eaten food by the bed and knew that the nurses were just gonna take it and throw it out, so he finished her food rather than leave the room to get a real meal.  He’d tell the nurses that she’d only eaten half a plate, which was a worry, because she needed to get her strength up.  But then Chop marvelled that she was eating again and felt a strange mix of joy and worry.  He couldn’t wait for Rae to come so he could tell her to tell the gang that Izzy seemed to be out of immediate danger now. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves.’ By Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin _

[ _https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGx7JkFSp4 &feature=kp_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGx7JkFSp4&feature=kp)

 

“Shoulder up.”  He ordered.  Chloe gritted her teeth.

“That fucking right shoulder.”  She punctuated each word with a hard punch and Rhys held the pads without any reaction. 

“Punch, kick, uppercut.”  He ordered, “Left, right.”  Chloe followed orders and punched the pads with her right fist, kicked with her right foot and then uppercut with her left fist.  She swapped and started with her right fist next time. 

She was covered in sweat and throwing everything she could at these pads and hating the way it had no effect on Rhys at all. 

After working with Rhys that first time she had instantly decided to do private training sessions with him as well.  She had organised with Rhys to learn kick boxing twice a week and the self-defence training once a week. 

Even just her first self-defence class with Rhys had strengthened her confidence within herself.  Enough to let Phillip touch her; nothing sexual, but any touch from a male of any kind was a step forward for Chloe right now. 

Rhys was an incredible trainer who brought out the best in people.  But he was serious and hard to read.  Chloe found him to be quite an enigma.  But that didn’t matter.  What mattered was that when she told him she wanted to do personal training so she could kill any man that touched her he had merely nodded and organised a timetable. 

“Kicks only.  Three left, three right.  Shin impact.”  Rhys ordered and Chloe complied, putting everything into it.  Her dance training had put her in good stead for learning kickboxing, she had the balance and flexibility required.  She was getting to the end of her stamina but Rhys pushed her more. 

“20 push ups 40 sit ups.”  He said as he took the pads off and walked away to get water.  Chloe dropped to do them without question.  She made herself do the push ups without her knees touching the floor.  She kept an image of Ian and Ben and the rest of those guys in the front of her mind as she did them. 

When she was done Rhys handed her water, and she sat on the bench, exhausted.

“You fight filled with hatred.”  Rhys said as he sat beside her. 

“You gonna give me some shit that I need to be emotionless to fight well?”

“Emotions are an asset.”  Rhys said unexpectedly.  “Keep you mind clear so that you can make good decisions and evaluate situations.  But pour your emotions through your body and out of your fists so he feels your hatred when you punch his skull in.”  Chloe grinned at Rhys and nodded.

“I like the way you talk Rhys.”

“That’s because I understand the way you think.”  Rhys answered but Chloe threw her head back and laughed bitterly.

“How could you possibly know how I think?”  Chloe said, “You couldn’t understand what it’s like to be raped.”

“I can’t understand what your rape was like.”  Rhys said, “But I understand what mine was like.”  Chloe turned her eyes to him in shock.

“Oh.”  She said softly. 

“I wasn’t always a 130 kilo, scary, tattooed guy.”  He said and looked forward. 

“I’m sorry.”  She said softly.

“Don’t be.”  He said honestly.  “You don’t owe me anything just because we have a shared experience.”  He said honestly, “But just understand Chloe; I do know how you think.  Cos I’ve thought those same thoughts myself.”  Chloe felt a strange kinship with Rhys and she weaved her arm around his.  He looked down at her arm and gave her a mildly unimpressed look.

“Am I ruining your hard-arse reputation?”  She teased and he shook his head bemused. 

“We should go for a drink Missy.”  He asked her with a sideways glance.  He didn’t usually ask his clients out, but Chloe was an interesting girl and his interest was piqued.

“Oh yeah?  Why’s that?”  She grinned, feeling a blush on her cheeks.  This was nice.  She felt like she was starting to be herself again. 

“Because we’re both ridiculously attractive and we both find each other interesting.”  He raised an eyebrow at her and she found herself chuckling at his expression.

“You’ll need a third reason.”  She said slightly seductively, testing those waters again.  He saw the slight seduction and Chloe felt warm inside, and like the rustiness was coming off the garden tools.

“Because we both want to.”  He replied matching her level of seduction with his tone and facial expression, even his body language softened 

“You don’t know what I want.”  Chloe teased.

“True.”  Rhys acknowledged, “But I figure you’ll tell me if I get it wrong.”  He smiled beautifully at her, and Chloe was struck by just how handsome he was.  “Did I get it wrong?”

“Maybe.”  She said tantalisingly, “Maybe not.” 

“And that’s all the answer I can expect from you?”  He grinned, taking her bait willingly and fully aware of the game she was playing. 

“For now.”

“Well then I am at your mercy Missy.” 

“Yes you are.”  Chloe answered with a grin.  She got up, passing the bottle of water to him and walked away to the shower room without looking back.

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Better Be Home Soon’ by Crowded House _

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQOlwMKpmvQ&feature=kp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQOlwMKpmvQ&feature=kp)

 

Janice ran her finger down the side of the letter slowly, re-reading it for the third time.  She could hear Gary singing Led Zeppelin tunes to himself in his room next door.  She smiled fondly as she thought about his kind face, his loyal spirit and his patient resolution.  They were alone in the house, Finn and Rae were visiting Finn’s new job.  Janice and Gary had had many evenings together over the past few months and despite her attempts to control herself a deep affection for him had grown inside of her.  Sorrow spread across her face and she read the letter again, desperately unsure about what she should do. 

“Oh shit.”  She heard him say as he dropped something.  She smiled again, deciding instantly to go and talk to him about it.  She left her bedroom and walked slowly to his bedroom door, knocking gently.

“Come in!”  He said cheerily.  Janice opened the door slowly to see him kneeling, picking up tiny pieces of potpourri that had fallen out of an ancient and heavy looking holder that he dropped. 

“My mother’s.”  He explained, Janice shoved the letter in the pocket of her jeans and she took a moment to appreciate him before kneeling to help him; her nimble fingers working quicker than his.  The wardrobe was open and a lot of old boxes from the top self were on the floor, half gone through. 

“Doing a clean-up?”  Janice asked bracingly. 

“Looking for old contact details from Kenzie’s side of the family.”  He said softly, “you know… the search has begun and all that.”  He smiled tightly and Janice looked away.

“It must be exciting to think you’ll see her again.”  She took a steadying breath.  Gary paused in reflection.

“I don’t even know what I’ll say to her.”  He shook his head slowly, “there was a time when there wasn’t a thought in my head that she didn’t know.”  He opened up an old photo book and looked at his school pictures.  “We were inseparable.”  He looked down at a picture of a beautiful teenaged girl and Janice tried to smile as encouragingly as she could.  “Seven years is big gap to bridge Janice.”  He said sadly.

“But you’ll try.”  She answered him.  “Because you’re a Nelson.”  Gary raised his eyes to her slowly, sorrow and conflict clear on his face. 

“Yeah.”  He nodded.  “I have missed her… and I do love her.”  He looked back down, “I suppose that’s all you need to start things off with.”

“Of course it is.”  She said firmly, “You’ll get her back.”  Gary kept his eyes lowered, looking at the picture.  He stood up and put the album on the dresser and offered a hand to Janice, helping her stand.

“Any way Janice, you didn’t knock on my door to hear me bang on about my misery, what can I do for you?”  He raised his eyes to hers and they stood in silence, looking into each other’s eyes as Janice hesitated.  She swallowed hard and slowly took the letter out of her pocket.  She held it tightly for a moment, not wanting to let go of it, because letting go of it would mean letting go of Gary.  Letting him read it would force her to make the decision.  And she knew what she had to do.  Slowly she handed the letter to Gary.  His eyes gave her a look of confusion and he looked down, opened the letter and read silently, his brows furrowing increasingly until he looked back up at her. 

“But you just got started here.”  He whispered, “You’ve changed Stamford for the better.”  She could see him wanting to say more but he looked back down at the letter. 

“The Hayward Gallery is kind of a big deal.”  Janice said softly, “I didn’t think I’d be offered a curating job there.  They don’t even have a permanent collection… I would be in charge of visiting collections from all around the world.  Do you understand what this would be for my career?”  Janice internally pleaded for him to understand. 

“But what about… us?”  He finished softly.

“Stamford doesn’t need me, there are so many bright people here that could run that centre…”

“I don’t mean Stamford.  I mean us Nelson men.  You’ve made this household better.”  She felt her heart ache with longing when she saw the look on his face.  She lowered her eyes and he stepped closer.  “Janice…” His voice was pleading, but he didn’t say more. 

“Gary, I have to take this job.”

“But what will Finn do without you to teach him to draw and…”  He shook his head.

“You know I can’t stay Gary.”  He stepped closer again, his face a picture of pleading, “you know it.”

“Why?”  He asked, their faces so close she could simply lean forward and kiss him, telling him in no uncertain terms why she couldn’t stay.  But she didn’t.  She just shook her head and lowered her eyes. 

“You have a lot to sort out with Kenzie.”  She answered gently, “You have a family to rebuild.”  She raised her eyes to his desperately sad face, “You don’t need another woman in the house while you’re doing all of that.”  She had chosen her words carefully and she saw that he understood.  He looked away for a moment.

“Can’t you take some time to think about it?”

“No Gary.”  She answered.

“Why can’t you just, have a moment to think?”  He said urgently, “to just get your head in order so you can figure out what it is you really want.”

“Are you talking about you or me Gary?”  She prodded gently and he shook his head.

“You’re the one talking about leaving.”  His voice remained pleading, urgent, desperate and confused.

“Because I have to.”

“Why?”  It was the closest to angry he’d ever been with her and she responded to the tone.

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”  She retorted.  He paused, his ire softening.

“Do you need me to say it?”  He asked softly, “Alright.  Please don’t go.”  His eyes dropped to her lips, “I don’t want you to go Janice.”  She felt herself leaning closer to him, felt his hands come up to her waist, his lips were so close, and she ached for him in a way she had never known.  But they stopped, their mouths barely a centimetre apart, her hands on his chest, feeling his heart thumping, his hand gripping her waist lovingly, longingly. 

“I’m sorry I’m not her.”  Janice whispered honestly, tears springing to her eyes.

“Oh don’t say that Janice.”  He breathed, “You’re quite perfect the way you are.” 

“As are you.”  She stroked his face fondly.  “But Gary.”  She said, swallowing her tears, “We both know, that I have to follow my career.” She started to step back but his hands held her close.

“I don’t know if I do know that Janice.”  He barely spoke the words. 

“You have to know it.”  She answered, the tears starting to fall down her cheeks.  “You have Finn to think about. And a wife to find and reconcile with.”  Janice took a deep breath, “a wife you still love.”  Gary looked at her face and gently wiped a tear from her face. 

“Please don’t go.”  He said one more time, his voice thick with emotion. 

“Think what you’re asking me to do Gary.”  He looked into her eyes for a long time, grief and confusion clouding his normally cheery face.  But slowly he let her hips go and she stepped back.  She saw a tear fall down his face as he turned away. 

“How long until you go?”

“A week.”  She said sadly and he nodded slowly. 

“Finn’ll take it badly.”  He continued, “So will Rae.”

“I’ll try and visit.”  Janice sounded much stronger than she felt.  In her mind she was throwing her arms around him and kissing him, begging him to make love to her. 

“I’d like that.”  He looked up at her, another tear falling from his other eye, an aching look in his eyes. 

“I’ll try and stay out of your way until I go.”  She said softly.

“That’s probably a good idea.”  He answered, desperately wanting to take her into his arms. 

“Goodbye Gary.”  She turned and left the room, not hearing what he said to her, but she thought he’d asked her not to leave again. 

She fled to her room and locked the door.  She stared at the letter in her hand and sobbed as quietly as she could. 

It took some time for Janice to be able to start the long process of packing everything, but she worked hard, knowing that she had to get out of their soon; her will-power and her emotions couldn’t hold out for a week. 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Taste It’ by INXS _

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0HRGkPZNds>

 

Finn ran his fingers along the deck.  For the next week he’d be learning how to use it, then he’d be starting the 10pm to 1am timeslot on a Saturday night.  Just one night a week, at a tiny community radio station. 

He was getting paid a pittance for it, and they’d agreed to let Rae volunteer so they could have a show with some ‘witty banter’ as Rae had put it. 

“It’s a start.”  He whispered to himself.  Dan showed Rae into the room and Finn turned to her with a big grin. 

“Right dude, this is where the magic will be happening for you guys.”  He looked round, “I gotta go finish me own show, but you guys can have a poke round her for the next hour and then I’ll come back and give you a quick run down of everything.”

“What you’re on the air now?”

“Yeah I got a prog rock song playing.  We got time, you know?”  Dan laughed, very amused by himself.  Rae scoffed and grinned at Finn, who was in some sort of heaven.  Rae realised how important this was to him, to be a radio DJ; it was his dream job. 

“And there’s no risk of us accidentally going to air?”  Finn asked and Dan laughed and shook his head,

“Newb.”  He chuckled.  “Right dude and dudette, I’ll be back in an hour.”  Rae watched him go and turned to Finn.

“Dudette?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s high and he can’t remember our names.”  Finn replied and Rae chortled as she turned to look around the tiny room with a happy smile.  Finn looked at all the buttons, the microphones, the sliding knobs, and the headphones.  He had brought in his own music after seeing the woeful music selection the station owned.  Apparently everyone brought in their own music.  He sat down in the chair and took Rae’s hand. 

“So you’re gonna be a radio DJ?”  Rae asked.  He nodded.

“And you’ll be a writer?”

“Hopefully.  Maybe I’ll do a fair bit o’ this with you though?”  She asked excitedly.

“I’d love that.”  He answered. 

“So you gotta do media or communications o’ some sort at uni.”  She mused.  And Finn nodded, realising he’d have to start thinking about that. 

“I didn’t even know if you need a degree to do this.”  He looked at the deck.

“You don’t need a degree to be a writer but I’m still gonna get one.”  Rae answered, “and you know I need you to get through it.”

“Yeah but even if I’m not t uni, I’ll still be with you.”  He grinned, “Always.”  She smiled begrudgingly at him and let herself be drawn onto his lap.  Finn wrapped his arms around her waist and enjoyed the weight of her in his lap, she rarely sat like this on him.  He leaned around her and pushed a button on the deck and nothing happened, Rae leaned forward, looking for an on switch.  As he pushed buttons, his other hand travelled from her waist up to her breasts, his mind occupied with both things quite happily.  It took him a while to realise that Rae was sitting still, looking back at him as his fingers traced around her nipple through her bra.  He saw the look in her eyes.

“You’re wondering how long till Dan gets back.”  He felt a cheeky grin cross his face.

“You read my mind Finlay.”  Finn looked through the glass wall to the clock on the wall in the adjacent room. 

“Long enough.”  They both exploded into action, she was up, bent over the decks, and his pants were around his ankles in the same moment.  He pulled her skirt up and slowly slipped her knickers down, letting them fall to around her ankles.  He slipped into her from behind and gripped her hips firmly and plunged into her hard and rough.  Both of their eyes stayed glued to the glass wall, waiting for someone to walk into the adjacent room at any moment.  Rae flicked her hair back and ground her hips lavishly and he groaned when her round arse pushed into him hard, trying to get him deeper.  She looked over her shoulder at him as she started to cum.  She groaned loudly and Finn encouraged her.

“C’mon girl.”  He said happily as he saw her mouth open in ecstasy a low guttural moan of pleasure accompanying the feel of her clenching around his cock.  He reached his hands up her body and grabbed her breasts hard and hammered into her, his eyes on the door to the other room, his ears drinking in the sounds of her pleasure.  He pushed himself to cum quicker than he’d like; Dan or anyone could come into the producer’s room at any time and see them through the glass wall.  He grunted loudly as he came, Rae groaning through her second orgasm simultaneously.  She stayed bent over the decks as he did his jeans up and slowly raised her knickers for her.

“Now I know my cum’s gonna be in your pants while he’s teaching us how to do this job.”  He breathed to her and she gave him a lustful look before kissing him in a way that made it perfectly clear that this was as much of a turn on for her as it was for him.  He collapsed back into the chair and Rae sat back on his lap, lacing her arm around his neck while she tried to settle down her clothes and hair.  Finn wrapped his arm back around her waist, the other one going back to the buttons and knobs on the deck as if that quickie had never happened.  It was another one of their little secrets.

 

 

_Dear diary_

_A gentle kind of peace has settled over my life._

_I’m starting to think of the future more and more._

_Second year of college, university after that.  A career.  Family.  Finn.  Always Finn._

_I once told you diary that people are the protagonists of their own stories, and that some have happy endings and some don’t.  As I write these diaries I realise more and more that my life has been like a blank notebook filling up with my words, my hopes, dreams, my own foolishness.  I am starting understand that I may not have chosen the notebook I was given, but I can choose what I write in it.  This is my story, and I get to choose how it goes.  And I know that occasionally I’ll come across a damaged page in my blank notebook, one that will rock my life and change my world.  But I still get to choose what I write on that page.  Kester’s been trying so hard for so long to teach me that I always have a choice, even if it’s a hard choice, or a bad choice.  I will always have a choice.  I think I finally understand that._

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Do You Love Me’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds _

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZGPB4463mM>

 

_It’s so easy to disappear into the mass of human filth that is London._

_Prostitutes calling for a dollar.  Goths smoking and having their existential angst.  Politicians and paedophiles and faggots and girls out for a night on the town.  Boys on a buck’s night.  Immigrants and pubs and buskers and what is that smell?_

_London._

_As old as balls._

_Blood on my hands_

_A skinny stray dog.  A skinny stray kid._

_Jack the ripper hunted in these streets._

_He made the misery here his home.  He sliced sluts up._

_The feel of her against me._

_I see that girl looking at me.  Her big blue eyes taking me in, wondering what my story is._

_You don’t wanna know my story little girl._

_I’ll just tear you up and throw you away…_

_And I’m not available anyway._

_I got a girl._

_And I love her._

_And she told me that she loves me._

_Blood on me hands.  Good._

_Was it enough blood?_

_Did that fucking fairy pretty boy die?_

_If he didn’t, I’ll be happy to see that he does._

_How dare he interrupt me and my girl when I was so close to coming for her like she wanted me to?_

_She a good little whore.  Likes to keep me pleased._

_I only have to stay at Rick’s place for a few.  Then I can go back and finally be with her._

_My poor girl._

_She’ll be missing me._

_Aching for me._

_I can imagine what hell this time apart will be for her._

_But it’s necessary my love._

_As the great bard said ‘I must be cruel only to be kind.’_

_And the kindness I will give you when I finally see you again will go beyond your wildest fantasies._

_Only a few here._

_A few hours?_

_A few days?_

_A few months?_

_A few years?_

_I dunno yet my love.  It’ll be as long as it needs to be for everything to be in the clear, so that we can finally spend the rest of your life together._

_Only a few here._

_Only a few more of sleeping on his filthy couch._

_Only a few more of dirty cockroaches in lice infested London streets._

_Only few more nights away from you.  I dream of you my love._

_But it’s only a few more._

_Only a few more beers.  A few more bongs.  A few more football games._

_Only a few more of eating the shit food Rick buys._

_I miss Raymundo’s jelly.  It reminds me of you my love: I wanna eat it._

_I wanna eat you._

_You belong to me._

 

 

 

 

 

**Thanks for reading**

**Cheers M’Dears**

 

 

 

Thank you to these two lovely women for my French translations:

[whatthefuckisthisfuckingfuckery](http://whatthefuckisthisfuckingfuckery.tumblr.com)

<http://freyasfrench.tumblr.com/>

 

 

 

 

 


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